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AGNOSTICISM  AND  RELIGION 


By  the  Same  Author 


KANTIAN    ETHICS    AND    THE    ETHICS    OF 
EVOLUTION.     8vo.    $2.00. 

THE     ETHICAL     IMPORT     OF     DARWINISM. 
12mo.    $1.50. 

BELIEF     IN     GOD  :    ITS    ORIGIN.    NATURE, 
AND    BASIS.  ,12mo.    $1.25. 

AN   EXAMINATION  OF  THE    CRITICAL   PHI- 
LOSOPHY OF  IMMANUEL  KANT. 

(In  Preparation.) 


AGNOSTICISM    AND 
RELIGION- 


BY 


JACOB  GOULD  SCHURMAN 

President  of  Cornell  University 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER^S   SONS 

1896 


S3 


COPYRIGHT,  1896,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


•7 


J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


"  The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inadequate  to  the 
stormy  present.  The  occasion  is  piled  high  with  difficulty, 
and  we  must  rise  with  the  occasion.  As  our  case  is  new, 
so  we  must  think  anew,  and  act  anew.  We  must  disen- 
thrall ourselves,  and  then  we  shall  save  our  [religion'].'' 


'^>    Of  THe     *^ 

Uiri7BESITl 

CONTENTS 


PART  I 

Huxley  and  Scientific  Agnosticism       .        .      1 

PART  II 
Philosophical  Agnosticism 


PAGK 


83 


PART  III 

Spiritual  Religion:  Its  Evolution  and  Es- 

.  129 
SENCB     


vii 


PART   I 

HUXLEY  AND  SCIENTIFIC 
AGNOSTICISM 

«  Thou  fool,  that  lohich  thou  sowest  is  not 
quickened,  except  it  die" 


trilVEFSIT 

HUXLEY  AND    SCIENTIFIC 
AGNOSTICISM  1 

I  DO  not  think  I  can,  at  the  beginning 
of  this  new  academic  year,  better  minister 
to  your  spiritual  needs  than  by  inviting 
you,  in  the  solemn  calm  of  this  time  and 
place,  to  reflect  for  an  hour  with  me  upon 
the  vital  doctrines  of  the  distinguished 
investigator  and  thinker  who  during  the 
summer  has  been  snatched  by  death  from 
the  ranks  of  science,  of  which  for  more  than 
a  third  of  a  century  he  has  been  a  fruitful 
cultivator,  a  doughty  defender,  and  an  il- 
lustrious ornament.  It  was  on  Saturday, 
June  29th,  that  Professor  Huxley  passed 
away,  encountering  the  great  mystery 
which  closes  the  continuous  mystery  of 
life  a  few  weeks  after  filling  out  the  psalm- 
ist's measure  of  threescore  years  and  ten. 
His  death  is  a  severe,  and  but  for  his  work 

1  An  address  delivered  before  the  students  of  Cor- 
nell University,  Sunday  evening,  November  3, 1895. 
3 


4  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

it  would  be  an  irreparable,  loss  to  the  re- 
public of  thought  and  science.  And,  in 
voicing  the  sincere  regret  we  all  feel  at 
the  removal  of  this  brilliant  and  devoted 
worker  for  the  enlargement  and  defence 
of  human  knowledge,  I  desire,  while  dis- 
charging what  you  will  perhaps  permit  me 
to  regard  as  a  corporate  trust,  to  express, 
if  it  is  not  presumptuous,  my  personal  ap- 
preciation of  his  abilities  and  attainments 
and  my  respect  for  the  integrity  of  his 
character,  the  nobility  of  his  aims,  and 
the  apostolic  zeal  and  earnestness  with 
which  he  devoted  himself  to  the  work  of 
his  life.  I  embrace  this  opportunity  the 
more  eagerly  as  I  am  constrained  to  dissent 
from  some  of  Huxley's  views. 

Thomas  Henry  Huxley  was  born  on  the 
4th  of  May,  1825.  His  early  education 
was  somewhat  irregular.  While  still  a 
boy,  he  had  a  strong  desire  to  be  a  mechan- 
ical engineer  ;  and,  if  his  architectonic  ge- 
nius, clear  intellect,  and  enthusiastic  and 
aggressive  energy  had  been  enlisted  in  the 
engineering  profession,  it  is  impossible  to 
say  what  he  might  not  have  achieved ;  but 
I  much  doubt  if  the  modern  world,  whose 
civilization   is   nourished   by  heat,  would 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  5 

still  be  guilty  of  the  stupid  and  wanton 
waste  of  nine  tenths  of  the  energy  stored 
up  in  coal  for  the  purpose  of  making  the 
remaining  tenth  available.  But  it  was 
not  destined  that  Huxley  should  solve 
this  still  unsolved  problem.  At  an  early 
age  he  entered  upon  the  study  of  medicine, , 
and  in  the  first  M.B.  examination  at  the 
University  of  London  he  took  honors  in 
anatomy  and  physiology.  His  taste  for 
engineering  did  not  leave  him ;  the  arena 
for  its  exercise  was  merely  shifted  from  the 
inorganic  macrocosm  to  the  organic  micro- 
cosm,—  from  nature  to  the  living  body. 
He  cared  little  about  medicine  as  the  art 
of  healing ;  the  only  subject  in  his  pro- 
fessional course  which  really  and  deeply 
interested  him  was  physiology, — and  phys- 
iology conceived  as  "the  mechanical  engi-\ 
neering  of  living  machines."  With  the' 
genius  of  a  Watt  or  Edison  he  set  him- 
self to  work  out  the  unity  of  plan  in  the 
structures  of  the  innumerable  throngs  of 
diverse  living  beings  and  the  modifications 
made  in  the  same  fundamental  mechanism 
to  serve  diverse  ends.  Fortune  favored 
his  tastes  and  ambition.  The  captain  of  | 
Her  Majesty's  ship  Rattlesnake^  which  had 


6  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

been  ordered  to  make  a  surveying  voyage 
in  the  southern  seas,  wanted  for  assistant 
surgeon  a  man  who  knew  something  of 
science ;  and  through  the  influence  of  Sir 
John  Richardson,  the  distinguished  natu- 
ralist and  Arctic  explorer,  Huxley  was 
given  the  appointment.  For  more  than 
four  years  —  from  1846  to  1850  —he  stud- 
ied in  Nature's  great  biological  laboratory, 
as  Darwin  and  Hooker  had  done  before 
him,  spending  most  of  his  time  on  the 
coasts  of  Australia  and  New  Guinea. 
The  communications  he  sent  home  won 
him  a  reputation  in  the  scientific  world ; 
and  in  1851  he  was  elected  a  Fellow  of  the 
Royal  Society.  He  now  desired  to  obtain 
a  professorship  of  either  Physiology  or 
Comparative  Anatomy ;  but  he  was  unsuc- 
cessful in  all  his  applications.  With  his 
friend  Tyndall,  he  turned  his  eyes  to  the 
New  World;  but  the  University  of  To- 
ronto, in  which  at  the  same  time  they  be- 
came candidates  for  the  vacant  chairs  of 
Physics  and  Natural  History,  "  would  not 
look  at  either"  of  them.  In  1854,  how- 
ever. Sir  Henry  De  la  Beche,  the  Director- 
General  of  the  Geological  Survey,>^^ered 
Huxley  the  post  of  Palaeontologist  anU  Lect- 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  7 

urer  on  Natural  History  which  Forbes  had 
just  resigned  in  the  Royal  School  of  Mines 
in  order  to  accept  the  chair  of  Natural  His- 
tory in  Edinburgh  University.  Huxley 
was  divided  between  his  allegiance  to 
physiology  and  his  desire  for  the  profes- 
sorship. He  frankly  told  Sir  Henry  that 
he  did  not  care  for  fossils  and  that  he 
would  give  up  Natural  History  as  soon  as 
he  could  get  a  chair  of  Physiology.  But, 
as  General  Grant  said,  on  publishing  his 
Memoirs  after  having  determined  never 
to  write  anything  for  publication :  "There 
are  but  few  important  events  in  the  affairs 
of  men  brought  about  by  their  own  choice." 
Not  only  did  Huxley  become  Lecturer  on 
Natural  History,  but  he  held  the  office  for 
thirty-one  years }  and  of  his  scientific  work 
a  large  part  is' paleeontological !  Indeed, 
he  took  the  whole  field  of  zoology  for  his 
province  ;  and  it  is  the  verdict  of  Haeckel 
that  he  was  the  foremost  zoologist  in  Eng- 
land. This  is  not  the  place  to  describe  his 
volumes  or  even  to  mention  his  celebrated 
memoirs.  After  the  publication  of  the 
"Origin  of  Species,"  his  investigations 
were  largely  guided  by  the  Darwinian 
hypothesis,  of  which  his   results   formed 


8  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

a  striking  and  substantial  verification. 
While  his  research  embraced  both  verte- 
brate and  invertebrate  life,  he  gave  special 
attention  to  the  structure  and  functions  of 
vertebrate  animals  and  he  won  renown  by 
his  brilliant  elucidations  of  the  intricacies 
of  their  mechanism.  His  growing  fame 
procured  him  membership  and  office  in 
many  learned  institutions  and  scientific 
associations ;  and  in  1883  he  was  crowned 
with  the  highest  official  distinction  to 
which  a  British  scientist  can  aspire,  the 
presidency  of  the  Royal  Society,  —  of 
which  for  ten  years  he  had  been  the  sec- 
retary. In  1885  he  resigned  his  profes- 
sorship (at  sixty,  he  used  to  say,  every 
scientific  man  "should  commit  the  happy 
despatch  ")  and  all  his  other  official  posts, 
and  soon  afterwards  removed  from  Lon- 
don to  Eastbourne.  But,  though  he  had 
well  earned  the  ease  and  quiet  of  retire- 
ment, it  is  the  last  decade  of  his  life  which 
is  notably  marked  by  those  divagations 
into  politics,  ethics,  and  especially  theol- 
ogy, which  made  Huxley's  name  one  of 
the  best  known  in  current  literature. 
These  incursions  were  often  resisted,  but 
such  was  the  advantage  of  his  controver- 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  9 

sial  position  and  his  skill  in  attack  and 
defence  that  he  was  seldom  worsted  and 
never  vanquished,  though  he  had  among 
his  adversaries  some  of  the  subtlest  dis- 
putants in  the  English-speaking  world. 

For  Huxley  was  not  merely  a  seeker  of 
truth,  he  was  her  knight  and  sworn  cham- 
pion, her  defender  and  her  advocate.  To 
carry  the  "  platform  "  of  science  with  the 
"intelligent  electors  " of  the  commonwealth 
was,  I  think,  his  dearest  ambition.  But 
he  would  have  been  as  good  a  champion 
of  any  other  "platform"  which  he  had 
once  accepted  with  that  intense  intel- 
lectual impulsiveness  he  inherited  from 
his  mother.  Indeed,  I  suspect  that  the 
Genius  which  presides  over  the  nativity 
of  Englishmen  may  have  intended  him  for 
leader  of  the  opposition  to  Her  Majesty's 
government  in  the  House  of  Commons  ; 
but  the  accident  of  a  "medical  brother- 
in-law  "  made  him  a  biologist ;  and  so 
it  happened  that  the  combativeness,  the 
genius  for  debate,  the  skill  in  attack  and 
defence,  the  courage  and  audacrty,  and  all 
the  splendid  fighting  qualities  with  which 
Nature  had  endowed  this  ardent  and  icon- 
oclastic radical  were   destined  to   find   a 


10  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

field  of  activity  in  the  advocacy  of  scien- 
tific knowledge  and  the  defiance  and  de-i 
nunciation  of  conventional  Christianity. 
He  says  himself  that  he  could  not  count 
even  his  scientific  attainments  and  honors 
"  as  marjis  of  success  if  I  could  not  hope 
that  I  had  somewhat  helped  that  move- 
ment of  opinion  which  has  been  called  the 
New  Reformation."  He  dearly  loved  a 
tilt  with  the  ecclesiastical  opponents  of  this 
progressive  theology.  And  not  even  in 
the  British  Parliament  was  there  a  more 
formidable  controversialist  in  England. 
Always  courteous,  he  had  at  command  the 
resources  of  ridicule  and  sarcasm  ;  warmly 
devoted  to  truth,  he  possessed  an  unerring 
sense  for  falsehood  and  error  ;  master  of  a 
lucid  and  trenchant  style,  a  skilful  dia- 
lectician, and  a  wonderful  adept  in  the  art 
of  luminous  explanation  and  popular  ex- 
position, he  was  at  home  in  science,  he 
had  travelled  the  highways  of  modern 
philosophy  and  literature,  and,  as  Burke 
said  of  Charles  Townshend,  he  knew  how 
to  bring  together,  within  a  short  time,  all 
that  was  necessary  to  establish,  to  illus- 
trate, and  to  decorate  that  side  of  the 
question  he  supported.     Nor  was  this  all. 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  11 

The  strong  atmosphere  of  debate  and  con- 
tention was  to  Huxley  like  the  air  of  the 
sea  or  mountain.  His  zest  in  the  pursuit 
of  knowledge  was  never  quite  so  keen  as 
when  the  game  led  across  the  enemy's  pre- 
serve. He  had,  indeed,  the  idealist's  faith 
that  truth  would  prevail,  but  he  delighted^ 
to  abound  in  militant  works  for  the  re-^ 
moval  of  obstacles  that  impeded  her  victo- 
rious march.  Darwin  passed  his  life  in 
serene  contemplation  and  studious  investi- 
gation of  nature,  interrupted  only  by  the 
thrill  of  fresh  insight  and  the  ecstasy  of 
new  discoveries.  Huxley  liked  research 
too  ;  but  he  cared  more  for  the  general 
acceptance  of  the  results  achieved  by 
scientists,  and  his  chief  delight  was  in 
compelling  the  public  to  assent  to  them, 
unless,  as  one  might  sometimes  suspect, 
he  derived  still  greater  satisfaction  from 
confuting  pretentious  critics  and  ruth- 
lessly exposing  their  ignorance.  It  is 
this  missionary  spirit  which  distinguished 
Huxley  from  all  the  scientists  of  his  gen- 
eration. He  was  the  great  apostle  of  the 
modern  gospel  of  science.  And  as  he  had 
the  preacher's  earnestness  in  proclaiming 
this  evangel  and  the  controversialist's  de- 


12  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

termination  to  make  it  prevail,  so  he  had 
e  dogmatist's  immovable  confidence  that 
is  creed  was  the  only  orthodox  doctrine, 
and  that  it  was  destined  to  overcome  all 
rival  dogmas  as  the  rod  of  Moses  swal- 
wed  up  the  rods  of  the  lesser  magicians. 
He  was  of  the  same  breed  as  the  theolo- 
gians he  assailed.  It  matters  not  that 
tKiirs  was  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the 
saints  and  his  the  creed  gradually  elabo- 
rated by  the  scientists.  In  his  temper 
and  mental  habit,  in  his  attitude  towards 
what  he  believed  the  truth,  Huxley  wa&  as 
vpritnblft  a,  dogmntint  n^i  any  of  his  theo- 
logical antagonists,  though  they  banned 
what  he  blessed  and  though  he  was  neither 
of  Paul  or  Peter,  but  heartily  wished  a 
plague  on  both  their  houses.  A  scientist 
by  profession  and  achievement,  but  m.-t,,j>^ 
wardly  a  theological  iconoclast,  it  is  not 
strange  that,  with  his  gifts  and  under  the 
stimulus  of  favoring  circumstances,  Hux- 
ley should  have  become  the  most  distin- 
guished protagonist  in  the  fierce  scientific 
and  theological  controversies  of  his  gener- 
ation. He  was  still  a  young  man  —  only 
thirty-four  years  of  age  —  when  tlie  bitter 
.  warfare  began  in  which  for  the  remaining 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  13 

half  of  his  life  he  drank  delight  of  battle 
with  his  peers, 

,     "  Far  on  the  ringing  plains  of  windy  Troy." 

The  signal  and  the  occasion  of  the  im- 
pending storm  was  the  appearance,  in  1859, 
of  Darwin's  "Origin  of  Species."  The 
tempest  which  this  work  aroused  in  the 
intellectual  world  was  without  a  parallel 
since  the  time  when  Galileo,  whom  (sad 
irony  of  fate!)  the  youthful  Milton  found 
blind  and  a  prisoner  of  the  Inquisition, 
had  revolutionized  the  thought  of  Chris- 
tendom by  inaugurating  the  Copernican 
astronomy.  The  Prospero  who,  in  his 
innocency,  had  conjured  up  this  storm 
was  a  modest,  retiring,  diffident  country 
gentleman,  peaceful  as  a  Quaker,  dreading 
controversy,  avoiding  society,  and  devot- 
ing his  entire  energy  (whenever  a  fragile 
constitution  permitted  him  to  labor)  to 
harmless  observation  of  the  ways  of  plants 
and  animals  and  innocent  reflection  upon 
the  mode  of  their  development.  This 
interpreter  of  nature  was  distinguished 
for  his  caution,  his  patience,  and,  above 
all,  his  fair-mindedness.  Now,  as  a  result 
of  his  study  and  meditation,  he  had  come 


14  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

to  the  conclusion  that  biological  species, 
which  had  hitherto  passed  for  immutable 
creations,  were  the  slowly  consolidated 
growths  of  changing  varieties.  The  fer- 
ment which  Darwin  thus  cast  into  the 
mass  of  current  beliefs  was  in  its  logical 
essence  identical  with  Galileo's  e  pur  si 
muove.  The  astronomer  asserted  that  the 
earth  moved;  the  biologist  that  species 
changed.  But  Darwin  was  more  than  a 
modern  Heracleitus  championing  the  her- 
esy of  flux  in  opposition  to  the  orthodox 
tradition  of  fixity  as  the  law  of  the  organic 
world.  Others,  too,  had  dreamt  of  the 
natural  transmutation  of  species  as  an 
alternative  to  the  miracle  of  creation. 
Darwin  endeavored  to  turn  the  dream  into 
a  demonstration.  His  is  the  peculiar 
glory  of  actually  showing,  by  analogy  of 
the  selective  breeding  practised  by  hor- 
ticulturists and  agriculturists,  how  the 
variations  in  the  species  of  plants  and 
animals  which  are  constantly  turning  up 
are,  under  the  influence  of  what  he  called 
Natural  Selection,  preserved,  and  then 
transmitted  with  modifications  to  de- 
scendants, until  by  successive  accumula- 
tions  they  are   consolidated   into  species 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  15 

entirely  distinct  from  the  original  forms ^ 
Man  has  made  new  varieties  of  the  horsei 
of  the  pigeon,  of  the  rose,  —  so  distinct 
that  a  naturalist  from  another  planet 
would  describe  them  as  different  species, 
— by  the  simple  method  of  breeding 
exclusively  from  the  individuals  which 
happened  to  possess  the  characteristics 
desired.  In  the  formation  of  true  spe-^ 
cies,  the  struggle  for  life  takes  the  place 
of  man's  selective  action,  with  the  result 
that,  while  in  the  competition  ill-favored 
varieties  are  exterminated,  those  organ- 
isms possessing  modifications  beneficial 
to  themselves,  those  which  are  "fittest" 
in  the  given  environment,  survive,  and,  as 
in  the  case  of  cultivated  plants  and  domes- 
ticated animals,  they  perpetuate  their  pe- 
culiarities until,  in  the  course  of  many 
generations,  there  emerges  the  result  of 
new  and  distinct  species. 

Such  is  the  essence  of  Darwinism,  or 
the  doctrine  of  the  origin  of  species.  Like 
all  great  and  fruitful  theories,  it  is  simple 
enough  when  once  pointed  out.  Every 
naturalist  was  already  familiar  with  the 
facts  of  variability,  of  the  struggle  for 
existence,  of  adaptation  to  environment, 


16  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

and  of  the  inheritance  of  parental  charac- 
teristics. But  no  one  before  Darwin  sus- 
pected that,  by  a  new  collocation  of  these 
well-known  phenomena,  a  scientific  solu- 
tion might  be  found  for  the  mysterious 
problem  of  the  origination  of  species.  In  a 
short  time  the  leaders,  and  before  long  the 
rank  and  file,  of  zoologists,  botanists,  and 
palaeontologists  accepted  the  Darwinian/ 
doctrine,  at  least  as  a  working  hypothesis. 
The  only  alternative  was  the  belief  in  the 
creation  of  species ;  but  as  the  Creator  is 
the  first  cause  of  all  things,  and  science 
seeks  second  or  intermediary  or  natural 
causes,  it  was  really  no  scientific  expla- 
nation to  say  that  species  were  created. 
Darwinism  assumed  no  causes  but  such 
as  could  be  proved  to  be  actually  at  work. 
It  had,  therefore,  the  essential  requisite 
of  every  scientific  hypothesis.  Whether 
it  was  adequate  to  explain  the  fact  of  the 
rise  of  species  was  another  matter.  And, 
for  one,  Huxley,  while  accepting  the  hy- 
pothesis, showed  that  its  logical  founda-' 
tion  was  incomplete  so  long  as  the  vari- 
eties produced  by  selective  breeding  were, 
while  true  species  were  not,  more  or  less 
fertile  with  one  another. 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  17 

It  is  not  for  me  to  express  an  opinion  on 
the  validity  of  the  Darwinian  theory.  I 
suppose,  however,  that  no  naturalist  would 
now  deny  that  within  certain  limits  new 
species  are  originated  by  the  survival  and 
consolidation  of  such  variations,  spontane- 
ously arising  in  organisms,  as  may  be  use* 
ful  to  their  possessors  in  the  struggle  for 
life.  Assuming,  therefore,  Darwinism  to 
be  true,  I  trust  I  may  be  permitted  to  ob- 
serve that  the  origin  of  species  remains 
almost  as  much  a  mystery  as  ever,  though 
the  mystery  has  been  thrown  a  stage 
further  back.  Organisms  differentiating 
themselves  continuously  along  particular 
lines  for  indefinite  periods  of  time  must, 
under  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
infallibly  give  rise  to  new  species.  But 
pray  observe  that  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
does  not  account  for  the  arrival  of  the  fittest. 
That  self -evolving  organism,  on  which  the 
entire  issue  is  dependent,  is  a  miracle  which 
no  naturalist  has  as  yet  transmuted  into 
science.  Natural  Selection  —  a  struggle 
for  life  and  survival  of  the  fittest  — 
simply  sifts  the  material  furnished  by  the 
variability  of  plants  and  animals.  The 
question  then  arises  by  what  agency  those 


18  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

variations  are  originated,  shaped,  and  con- 
tinued so  that  they  are  capable  of  produc- 
ing those  specific  forms  which,  under  the 
sifting  of  natural  selection,  actually  emerge. 
Darwin  himself  was  not  insensible  to  the 
heavy  weight  of  this  unexplained  mystery. 
In  a  letter  to  Huxley,  written  November 
25,  1859,  he  expressed  his  perplexity  con- 
cisely and  aptly,  though  somewhat  pro- 
fanely, in  the  following  query:  "  What  the 
devil  determines  each  particular  variation? 
What  makes  a  tuft  of  feathers  come  on 
a  cock's  head,  or  moss  on  a  moss-rose?" 
If  Darwin  explained  the  appearance  of  new 
species,  he  did  not  explain  the  emergence 
of  this  differentiation  of  the  organism  — 
much  less  the  origin  of  the  organism  itself 
—  from  which  new  species  take  their  rise. 
The  "  Origin  of  Species "  is,  in  fact,  not 
the  Genesis  but  the  Exodus  of  living  forms. 
It  tells  how  a  chosen  seed,  having  been  led 
out  of  the  house  of  bondage, — the  bondage 
to  ancestral  type, —  waged  a  long  struggle 
against  the  inhospitality  of  its  environment 
and  the  attacks  of  its  rivals,  until  at  length 
it  reached  the  promised  goal, —  the  stature 
of  an  independent  race,  the  transmutation 
into  a  new  species. 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  19 

One  thing,  however,  is  indisputable. 
The  Darwinian  hypothesis  clearly  belonged 
to  the  realm  of  science.  If  ever  there  was 
a  passionless  and  abstract  theory,  Darwin's 
doctrine  of  the  origination  of  species  would 
seem  to  have  deserved  that  characterization. 
And  certainly  no  one  but  a  master  in  the 
biological  sciences  should  have  presumed 
to  estimate  the  validity,  or  fix  the  limits, 
of  a  theory  resting  on  such  a  mass  of  ob- 
servations, and  sustained  by  so  many  lines 
of  converging  evidence,  as  those  which 
Darwin  brought  to  the  support  of  the 
theory  of  Natural  Selection.  But  oftenest 
the  unexpected  happens, — and  this  time 
the  unwarranted.  The  ignorance,  bigotry, 
and  blind  passion  of  the  mob  who  con- 
demned Socrates  now  took  the  judgment- 
seat  for  the  hearing  of  Darwin.  Dragged 
from  the  study  and  the  laboratory  into 
the  garish  light  of  public  notoriety,  his 
scientific  hypothesis  became  the  scandal  of 
parlors  and  the  ridicule  of  clubs,  while 
press,  platform,  and  pulpit  thundered  with 
a  confused  turmoil  of  refutation  and  in- 
vective, in  which  were  mingled  outrageous 
denunciations  of  the  simple  naturalist  him- 
self as  a  dangerous,  godless,  and  even  de- 


20  SCIENTIFIC  AGJ^OSTICISM 

generate  member  of  the  human  species. 
But  if  unthinking  orthodoxy  and  prim  pro- 
priety were  horrified,  free-thinking  radi- 
calism went  mad  with  delight.  She  wildly  j 
clasped  Darwinism  to  her  bosom  as  the! 
hopeful  parent  of  infidelity,  materialism, 
and  atheism.  What  with  friends  and  foes, 
the  plain  craft  of  science  had  never  before 
got  between  such  a  Scylla  and  Charybdis! 
But  why  all  this  public  interest  in  the 
new  theory  of  organic  species,  you  will  ask  ? 
The  mass  of  people,  we  all  know,  are  not 
as  a  rule  much  concerned  about  abstract 
inquiries.  Quite  true  ;  and  I  will  say  at 
once  that  it  was  not  Darwin's  theory  of  the 
origin  of  species  which  convulsed  society, 
but  the  inferences,  deductions,  and  associ- 
ated ideas  which  that  theory  suggested 
concerning  matters  of  vital  and  permanent 
interest  to  humanity.  C Human  reason  de- 
clares that  God  is  the  ground  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  the  moral  and  religious  sense 
gives  assurance  that  He  is  the  Father  of  our 
spirits.  Now  this  primary  belief, —  "  in  the 
beginning,  God,"  —  this  datum  of  con- 
sciousness as  I  may  call  it,  has,  in  the  lapse 
of  many  Christian  centuries,  become  insep- 
arably entwined  with  a  venerable  tradition 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  21 

of  creation,  according  to  which  species  were 
instantaneously  originated,  immutably 
fixed,  and  permanently  distinguished.  Read 
once  more  the  beautiful  legend  with  which 
the  Bible  opens,  —  a  legend  so  poetically 
vivid  that  Darwin's  contemporaries  still 
took  it  for  history,  as  men  devoid  of  culture 
and  literary  feeling  do  to  this  day,  —  read 
this  story,  I  repeat,  and  you  will  see  that  the 
writer  conceives  of  the  species  of  plants  and 
animals  as  sudden  and  unchangeable  crea- 
tions, with  metes  and  bounds  for  each,  and 
an  impassable  chasm  between  man  and  every 
other  species.  This  legendary  account  of 
the  genesis  of  things  had,  unfortunately, 
embosomed  itself,  not  only  in  theology,  but 
in  the  religious  thought  and  feeling  of 
Christendom.  And  when  the  ^^  Origin^f 
Species^  appeared^  the  church  jiad  not  y^ 
recovered  from  the  rude  shock  administered 
to  the  orthodox  belief  in  impulsive  crea- 
tions by  the  uniformitarian  geology  of 
Lyell's  ''Principles."  In  sheer  self-defence, 
therefore,  religious  minds  felt  impelled  to 
attack  the  evolutionary  biology  which  Dar- 
win  proclamicd  and,  is  till  morOj  tha-Xfivo:! 
lutionary  anthropology  which  loomed_iip 
behind  it.     If  species  were  not  immutable. 


22  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

if  related  species  were  co-descendants  of 
the  same  ancestors,  then  man  and  the  apes 
—  oh,  unutterable  horror!  You  smile  at 
the  mention,  or  even  at  the  suggestion,  of 
the  pithecoid  origin  of  mankind!  But  it 
was  a  stone  of  stumbling  to  able  and  de- 
vout men  of  the  last  generation.  "What, 
they  asked,  would  become  of  the  soul,  of 
sin,  of  the_atonenient,  —  nay,  of^e  Creator 
Hiroself  thus  dischargedT^ofso  much  of 
the  ^ctivity  hitherto  imposed  upon  Him  ? 
ITwasTindeed,  an  awful  crisis  of  thought. 
And  the  travail  and  pathos  of  it  will 
long  be  remembered.  But  you  who  look 
back  on  it,  as  to  a  remote  period,  with 
the  fresh  eyes  of  youth,  will  not  miss 
the  comic  by-play  that  mingled  with  the 
tragedy.  You  will  see  society  divided  into^ 
two  heraldic  camps,  one  battling  for  an 
ancestor  a  little  lower  than  the  angels  and 
the  other  for  an  ancestor  a  little  higher 
than  the  apes.  You  will  see  cool  men  lose 
their  heads,  and  men  of  good  breeding  part 
with  their  manners,  and  men  not  hitherto 
conspicuous  for  piety  suddenly  grown  jeal- 
ous about  the  honor  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts. 
And  all  the  while  it  is  forgotten  that  man 
is  what  he  is  howsoever  he  came  to  be  what 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  23 

he  is,  and  that  in  God  all  things  live  and 
move  and  have  their  being,  though  His 
children  are  forever  misreading  the  way 
in  which  He  does  His  wondrous  works. 

It  was  all  over  with  science !  In  this 
fierce  and  indiscriminate  polemic,  the  Dar- 
winian hypothesis  retreated  from  view  be- 
fore the  spectres  which  it  had  evoked  in 
the  imagination  of  the  excited  disputants 
and  the  terrified  public.  The  theory  of 
the  origination  of  species  by  natural  se- 
lection was  a  generalization  addressed  to 
naturalists ;  but  instead  of  receiving  a 
dispassionate  examination  at  the  hands  of 
experts,  it  became  the  occasion  of  a  free 
fight  over  the  entire  area  of  that  No  Man's 
Land  which  lies  between,  modern  Science 
and  traditional  Theology.  Onej^ai±y_apr:^ 
pealedjbgJJie  sure  jvmrcLof  revelation,  the 
QthgX„tO— the  in  errant  record  of  nature.. 
The  points  of  issue  were  not  clearly  de- 
fined ;  their  number  multiplied  as  the  bit- 
terness of  the  disputants  increased  ;  and 
in  time  Darwinism  became  identified  with 
a  mass  of  biological,  psychological,  ethical, 
metaphysical,  and  theological  speculations, 
having  little  or  nothing  in  common  but  a 
genetic  or  historical  method  of  treatment. 


24  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

and  a  content  marked  by  opposition  to 
current  belief  and  orthodox  Christianity. 
Huxley  at  an  early  stage  descended  into 
this  arena  with  alacrity  and  keen  delight. 
Darwin  gave  him  the  sobriquet  of  "  My 
General  Agent."  He  became  the  leader 
of  the  radical  hosts.  While  retaining  his 
speculative  doubt  of  Darwin's  biological 
hypothesis,  he  was  the  head  and  front  of 
the  Darwinians.  I  have  already  described 
his  splendid  controversial  powers ;  I  may 
say  here  that  he  was  too  good  a  debater, 
too  intense  a  partisan,  too  strong  a  hater, 
to  put  himself  sympathetically  at  the 
standpoint  of  his  opponents,  and  lead 
them  by  kindly  tact  and  timely  sugges- 
tion of  higher  truth  out  of  the  bondage 
of  error  in  which  he  believed  them  be- 
nighted captives.  His  militant  spirit  was 
too  strong  for  his  pedagogical  instinct. 
His  genius  was  not  constructive,  but  icon- 
oclastic. He  delighted  to  dare,  to  defy, 
to  destroy;  in  dealing  with  persons  not 
of  his  way  of  thinking,  his  aim  was  less 
instruction  than  refutation;  and  I  sup- 
pose nothing  gave  him  greater  pleasure 
than  to  cleave  an  antagonist  with  the 
sword  of  his  logic,  unless  it  was  to  be- 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  25 

wilder  him  with  the  rapier  of  his  irony. 
I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to  disparage  the 
value  of  discussion.  My  point  is  merely 
that,  if  Huxley  could  have  had  more  sym- 
pathy with  the  Philistines,  his  arguments, 
though  losing  something  of  their  point 
and  dash,  would  have  gained  in  illumina- 
tion, efficacy,  and  fruitfulness.  But  one 
must  take  him  as  he  was ;  and  it  was  the 
nature  of  his  analytic  genius  to  revel  in 
antinomies,  and  the  method  of  his  debate 
was  to  impale  antagonists  between  the 
horns  of  an  "either  —  or."  Let  us,  how- 
ever, not  forget  that  besides  the  thesis  and 
antithesis  of  the  controversialist,  there  is 
the  synthesis  of  the  comprehensive  thinker, 
and  that  the  "either  —  or"  of  angry  de- 
bate is  often  cancelled  by  the  "both — and  " 
of  calm  reflection.  Whether  the  issues 
between  Huxley  and  his  adversaries  may 
be  so  resolved,  we  must  now  proceed  to 
consider. 

I  think  that  the  many  litigious  suits  in 
which  Huxley  was  engaged  as  advocate 
for  natural  knowledge  may  all  be  em- 
braced in  three  categories,  which,  though 
related,  we  may  nevertheless  clearly  dis- 
tinguish.    First  of  all,  there  is  the  case 


26  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 


V. 


of  SciGB.Ge__versus  Revelation ;  secondly, 
the  case  of  Evolution  versus  Creatiqn  ; 
and,  thirdly,  the  case  of  Pithecus  or  the 
Ape  versus  Adam.  Thelirst  of  these 
cases  engrossed  the  latter  years  of  his 
life ;  the  other  two  claimed  his  attention 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  over  Darwin- 
ism. The  three,  taken  together,  afforded 
abundant  scope  for  the  exhibition  of  that 
mental  attitude  which  Huxley  first  desigL- 
nated  Agnosticism^  And  though  his  creed 
as  an  Agnostic  was  not  exhausted  either 
in  idea  or  in  fact  by  his  views  on  these 
disputed  points,  these  were  the  only  as- 
pects of  it  which  he  ever  fully  developed, 
or  in  which  he  seemed  sincerely  and  in- 
tensely interested.  I  shall  have  to  allude 
to  other  elements  of  the  Agnostic  faith 
hereafter.  Meantime  let  us  see  how  the 
eponymous  Agnostic  filled  his  role  in 
those  vital  contests  between  popular  be- 
lief and  evolutionary  science  to  which  I 
have  just  referred.  It  will  be  convenient 
to  begin  with  the  case  of  Evolution  versus 
Creation.  ' 

That  God  is  the  ultimate  ground  and 
source  of  all  things,  whether  they  be  liv- 
ing or  inert,  thinking  or  unthinking,  seems 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  27 

to  me  not  merely  a  conclusion  reached  by- 
reflection  and  inference,  but  an  intuitive 
belief  constitutive  of  intelligence  itself. 
Man,  because  he  is  rational,  must  believe 
in  God  as  Universal  First  Cause  ;  atheism 
is,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term,  irra- 
tional. Science,  however,  is  in  quest,  not 
of  the  ultimate  ground  and  reason  of  exist- 
ence, but  of  the  so-called  secondary  causes, 
—  the  proximate  agencies  and  circum- 
stances, —  by  which -things  have  been  mod- 
ified in  the  natural  order  of  events.  It  is, 
therefore,  not  an  explanation  of  the  scien- 
tific order  to  say  that  species  of  animals 
and  plants  were  created  by  God.  The 
proposition  may  be  perfectly  true  and 
yet,  in  connection  with  science,  totally 
irrelevant.  What  the  biologist  seeks  to 
discover  is  the  sequence  of  the  natural 
phenomena  by  which  it  has  been  brought 
about  that  species  have  become  what  they 
are.  And  for  the  definite  purpose,  the 
limited  inquiry,  which  science  sets  before 
itself  as  the  goal  of  its  endeavor,  it  mat- 
ters not  —  I  say  it  with  no  feeling  of  irrev- 
erence—  whether  there  be  a  Creator  or 
not.  If  proximate  causes,  if  natural  agen- 
cies, cannot  be  found  to  account  for  the 


28  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

origination  of  species,  the  problem  for  the 
man  of  science  is  unsolved,  and  it  may  be 
insoluble ;  but  in  any  event,  the  case  is 
not  helped  from  the  scientific  point  of 
view  by  the  theory  of  supernatural  crea- 
tion. If  it  be  true  that  all  kinds  of  life 
came  into  existence  instantaneously,  by 
the  mere  fiat  of  the  Divine  Will,  then  this 
fact,  instead  of  affording  an  alternative 
explanation  to  the  biologist,  carries  the 
problem  which  he  had  raised  out  of  the 
field  of  science  altogether.  Science  stops 
where  the  sequence  of  natural  events  in 
time  is, broken  by  a  supernatural  occur- 
rence. Science  is  simply  the  record  of  the 
behavior  of  things  under  the  established 
order ;  neither  her  method  nor  her  appa- 
ratus enables  her  to  go  beyond  these  limits  ; 
and  when  Omnipotence  comes  upon  the 
scene,  she  is  smitten  with  impotence.  Only 
there  are  such  good  reasons  for  faith  in  the 
continuity  of  natural  causation  that  no  one 
can  be  expected  to  believe,  without  the 
strongest  evidence,  in  a  breach  due  to  the 
miracle  of  supernatural  agency. 

How,  then,  stands  the  case  with  the  origi- 
nation of  species  ?  Men  of  science  may  be 
prejudiced  in  favor  of  an  explanation  by 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  29 

natural  causation,  for  it  is  their  business ' 
to  seek  secondary  causes ;  but  if,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  species  were  miraculously 
and  instantaneously  created  by  God,  there 
would  be  nothing  for  biology  to  do  but  to 
accept  the  fact  and  confine  its  inquiries  to 
the  behavior  of  the  organisms  which  had 
thus  come  supernaturally  upon  the  field. 
But  we  do  not  know  that  living  forms 
were  thus  originated.  It  was,  no  doubt, 
the  universal  belief  before  Darwin.  But 
that  belief  had  no  other  basis  than  the  bib- 
lical account  of  creation ;  and  we  have  now 
learned  that,  whatever  else  the  Bible  may 
do  for  us,  it  was  never  intended  to  teach 
us  science.  Indeed  the  very  conception  of . 
science  —  derived,  as  it  is,  from  the  Greeks 
—  was  foreign  to  the  Hebrew  mind.  If 
you  read  the  Old  Testament  with  the 
slightest  degree  of  attention,  you  will  see 
that  none  of  the  writers  has  any  notion  of 
that  order  of  nature  and  system  of  sec- 
ondary causes  which  it  is  the  function 
of  science  to  interpret.  On  the  contrary, 
they  conceive  of  God  as  the  direct  and 
immediate  cause  of  all  natural  phenomena. 
"The  God  of  glory  thundereth;"  "the 
voice  of  the  Lord  breaketh  the  cedars ;  " 


30  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

"  the  voice  of  the  Lord  shaketh  the  wilder- 
ness ;  "  "  the  voice  of  the  Lord  maketh  the 
hinds  to  calve  ;  "  "  the  Lord  sitteth  upon 
the  flood ;  yea,  the  Lord  sitteth  King  for- 
ever." These  quotations  are  from  a  psal- 
mist, it  is  true;  but  neither  in  poet  or 
prophet,  chronicler  or  historian,  will  you 
discover  any  hint  of  nature  as  an  inter- 
mediary system  of  relatively  independent 
agencies  ;  and,  the  more  fervid  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  writer,  the  more  intensely  does 
he  picture  all  sublunary  changes  as  doings 
of  the  Lord  of  Hosts.  Ultimately  considn\ 
ered,  this  interpretation  seems  to  me  to  be\\ 
true,  eternally  true.  But  it  is  a  verity  \ 
with  which  science  has  no  concern.  On 
the  other  hand,  as  I  have  said  already,  the 
Hebrew  race  had  no  genius  for  that  exact 
and  systematic  knowledge  of  natural  phe- 
nomena which  is  the  desideratum  of  the 
scientific  inquirer.  When,  therefore,  this 
profound,  but  unscientific,  people  began  to 
brood  over  the  mysterious  problem  of  the 
origin  of  things,  they  grasped,  with  a  clear- 
ness that  has  never  been  excelled,  the 
great  and  precious  truth  that  God  is  the 
creative  source  of  the  world ;  but  when 
they  proceeded  to  describe  the  procession 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  31 

of  natural  phenomena  —  the  breaking  of 
light  on  chaos,  the  formation  of  the  globe, 
and  the  appearance  of  living  creatures, 
"each  after  his  kind"  —  they  were  so  far 
from  anticipating  the  discoveries  of  modern 
science  that  their  only  aim  was  to  adorn 
the  truth  of  reason  with  the  poetry  of  a 
naive  but  sublime  phantasy,  for  which  they 
sketched  a  succession  of  pictures  which 
still  have  potency  to  subdue  the  imagina- 
tion and  attune  the  emotions  like  the 
stately  overture  to  an  oratorio. 

It  is  perfectly  obvious  to-day  —  or  it 
should  be  —  that  if  you  would  know  the 
history  of  organisms  you  must  consult  the 
testimony  of  the  fossiliferous  rocks.  It 
was  very  different  when  Huxley  began  his  j 
investigations.  Everybody  then  supposed 
it  was  enough  to  consult  the  Book  of  Gen- 
esis. It  became  Huxley's  duty,  as  a  man 
of  science,  to  show  that  the  two  records 
did  not  agree.  And  he  accomplished  the 
task,  which  it  must  be  owned  he  found  far 
from  uncongenial,  with  an  array  of  evi- 
dence and  a  cogency  of  demonstration 
which  convinced  everybody  except  his 
discomfited  antagonists  and  the  invincible 
torturers   of   the   Hebrew  text.      Huxley 


32  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

professed  to  have  a  perfectly  open  mind 
towards  the  two  records,  to  have  no  preju- 
dice one  way  or  the  other ;  and  he  declared 
that  the  view  which  he  accepted  was  com- 
mended solely  by  the  conclusiveness  of  the 
evidence  in  its  favor.  Perhaps  he  deceived 
himself;  perhaps  he  was  influenced,  to 
some  extent,  at  least,  by  his  way  of  look- 
ing at  things  in  general  —  what  Mr.  Bal- 
four has  since  called  the  "psychological 
climate."  But  Huxley  was  certainly  not 
conscious  of  any  such  distracting  cause  of 
belief.  In  relation  to  the  conflict  between 
the  creational  and  the  evolutional  doctrine 
of  the  origin  of  species,  he  conceived  his 
mind  as  a  freely  acting  balance,  which, 
however  moved,  was  moved  solely  by  the 
weight  of  the  evidence  adduced.  And 
this  hospitalitj^  and  loyalty  of  the  mind 
to  evidence,  with  the  putting  away  of  au- 
thority, tradition,  and  every  other  cir- 
cumstance, is  what  Huxley  means  by  the 
Agnosticism  of  the  man  of  science. 

I  have  hitherto  spoken  of  the  case  of 
Evolution  versus  Creation  solely  from  the 
point  of  view  of  biology.  Huxley's  con- 
tention is  that,  as  concerns  the  time,  order, 
and  manner  in  which  living  kinds  came 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  33 

into  existence,  the  stratified  rocks  tell  one 
story  and  the  Book  of  Genesis  another. 
But  Huicley  (putting  aside  the  colossal 
blunder  of  Bathybius,  which  he  frankly 
acknowledged)  has  nothing  to  say  of  the 
first  beginning  of  those  primordial  species 
from  whose  varieties  other  species  may 
subsequently  have  been  formed.  And,  of 
course,  as  a  biologist,  he  was  under  no 
temptation  to  account  for  the  origin  of  the 
inorganic  world  or  of  the  realm  of  con- 
scious minds.  It  is  conceivable,  indeed, 
that  the  universe  is  eternal ;  but,  if  so, 
reflection  shows  that  neither  now  nor  at 
any  other  moment  could  it  exist  without 
the  sustaining  energy  of  the  Divine  Voli- 
tion ;  and  Goethe  finely  calls  it  "  the  liv- 
ing garment  of  God."  But,  however  it 
be  with  the  universe,  it  is  a  certainty  of, 
science  that  at  one  time  there  was  neither 
life  nor  consciousness  on  this  globe.  To 
the  man  of  science  their  emergence  must 
be  a  miracle,  for  it  is  a  violation  of  the 
law  of  natural  causation.  The  religious 
mind  calls  it  a  creation.  Evolutionary 
science  would  have  accomplished  its  goal 
only  if  it  could  show  that  life  had  devel- 
oped  from    inorganic    matter,   and   mind 


34  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

from  unconscious  life.  From  the  primi- 
tive nebula  of  the  universe  to  man  who 
knows  it,  the  chain  of  evolution  would 
then  be  complete.  There  would  be  no 
break  in  what  Huxley  described  as  "Nat- 
ure's great  progression,  from  the  formless 
to  the  formed  —  from  the  inorganic  to  thei 
organic  —  from  blind  force  to  consciou^ 
intellect  and  will."  But  science  has  nop 
realized  this  ideal;  and  it  is  probably 
unrealizable.  This  is  doubtless  a  great 
comfort  to  the  general  public.  Were  the 
realization  ever  achieved,  many  pious 
minds,  who  can  see  God  only  when  He 
breaks  in  on  the  order  of  natural  causa- 
tion, would  have  to  walk  by  iaith  ;  and  I 
fear,  in  the  absence  of  sight,  the  light 
would  seem  dim  indeed.  Yet  a  primitive 
chaos  of  star-dust,  which  held  in  its  womb 
not  only  the  cosmos  that  fills  space,  not 
only  the  living  creatures  that  teem  upon 
it,  but  also  the  intellect  that  interprets  it, 
the  will  that  confronts  it,  and  the  con- 
science that  transfigures  it,  must  as  cer- 
tainly have  God  at  the  centre  as  a  universe 
mechanically  arranged  and  periodically  ad- 
justed must  have  Him  at  the  circumference. 
There  is  no  real  antagonism  between  Ore- 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  35 

ation  and  Evolution.     The  notion  of  Cv^ 

ation  implies  the  absolute  beginning  of 
existence;  the  notion  of  Evolution  im- 
plies gradual  and  progressive  change  in 
that  which  already  exists.  Creation  is 
not  only  in  itself  toto  ccelo  different  from 
Evolution;  it  is  as  much  the  prerequisite 
of  Evolution  as  your  bodily  system  is  of 
digestion.  Evolution  is  merely  the  mode 
in  which,  according  to  modern  science, 
God  manifests  Himself  alike  in  the  world 
of  nature  and  in  the  world  of  spirit.  His 
procedure  is  not  by  spasms  and  cataclysms ; 
but  here  a  little,  there  a  little,  and  ever 
gradually  onward. 

I  wonder  what  posterity  will  make  of 
the  confusion  which  the  law  of  evolution 
caused  in  the  minds  of  the  generation 
which  in  the  nineteenth  century  first 
discovered  conclusive  evidence  of  its 
operation  ?  They  will  surely  learn  with 
amazement  and  incredulity  that  the  dis- 
covery was  in  high  quarters  supposed  to 
be  fatal  to  a  belief  in  God,  and  that,  what 
in  old  times  the  fool  had  said  in  his  heart, 
was  in  that  age  proclaimed  upon  the  house- 
tops as  the  final  inference  of  science  and 
philosophy.     As  though  man's  faith  that 


36  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

Crod  is  could  be  shaken  by  a  new  glimpse 
of  how  God  acts!  Surely  it  remains  a 
necessary  postulate  of  intelligence  —  a 
datum  as  reasonable  and  trustworthy  as 
belief  in  the  existence  of  anything  what- 
soever—  that  God  is  the  creative  source 
and  sustaining  ground  of  the  universe, 
—  and  that,  whether  He  poured  forth  His 
energy  at  a  definite  then  and  there,  or,  as 
I  believe,  continues  to  diffuse  it  through 
every  point  of  infinite  space  and  to  main- 
tain it  at  every  moment  of  unending  time. 

I  must  do  Huxley  the  justice  of  explain- 
ing that  his  clear  intellect  was  never 
obscured  by  the  delusion  that  atheism 
was  an  inference  from  the  theory  of 
evolution.  What  he  attacked  was  that 
venerable  tradition  of  the  process  of 
creation,  which  had  been  so  long  ac- 
cepted as  a  part  of  religion  itself  ;  and 
he  attacked  it  for  the  good  and  sufficient 
reason  that  it  was  at  variance  with  the 
facts  revealed  in  the  fossiliferous  strata 
of  the  earth's  crust. 

I  have  to  some  extent  already  touched 
upon  Huxley's  advocacy  of  the  simian 
or  pithecoid  origin  of  man.  I  have  des- 
ignated this  issue  the  case    of   Pithecus 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  37 

versus  Adam.  Huxley  considered  the 
issue  one  of  capital  importance.  His  own 
attitude  brought  upon  him  criticism  and 
ridicule,  and  not  only  those,  but  also  ani- 
madversion and  reproof;  and  for  a  time, 
as  he  long  afterwards  good-naturedly 
said,  he  was  little  better  than  one  of 
the  wicked.  But  Huxley  needed  oppo- 
sition ;  he  liked  fighting ;  and  this  cru- 
sade was  in  the  cause  of  truth.  Indeed 
it  is  difficult  to  know  how  a  fair-minded 
and  honest  biologist  who  saw  so  far  could 
have  forborne  to  say  as  much  as  Huxley 
set  down  in  his  famous  pamphlet  on 
"Man's  Place  in  Nature."  Science  must 
needs  be  truthful,  outright,  and  down- 
right. And  Huxley  was  not  the  man  to 
make  his  biographer  blush,  as  Bacon  had 
made  Macaulay  blush  "  for  the  disingen- 
uousness  of  the  most  devoted  worshipper 
of  speculative  truth,  for  the  servility  of 
the  boldest  champion  of  intellectual  free- 
dom." Herein  Huxley  is  an  admirable 
example  to  every  student  and  thinker. 
The  thing  that  is  true  may  not  be  wel- 
come—  for  interests  are  entrenched  be- 
hind what  is  current;  but  if  you  know 
it   to   be    true  —  I   am   not    speaking   of 


38  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

guessing  but  of  knowledge,  and  I  say 
if  you  are  sure  you  have  ascertained  the 
truth,  in  God's  name  speak  it  out  and 
keep  not  silent!  This  is  what  Huxley 
did  in  regard  to  the  question  of  man's 
relation  to  the  animals  next  below  him. 
Even  before  the  appearance  of  "  The 
Origin  of  Species  "  he  had  thought  much 
of  the  structural  affinities  of  men  and 
apes  ;  and  the  views  at  which  he  had 
arrived  were  in  full  harmony  with  those 
which  Darwin  now  proclaimed.  "  Man's 
Place  in  Nature "  was  finished  in  1862. 
Taking  account  both  of  foetal  develop- 
ment and  adult  structure,  this  work  de- 
monstrated the  most  striking  similarities 
between  man  and  the  man-like  apes.  In 
the  processes  of  origination,  in  the  early 
stages  of  formation,  in  the  mode  of  nu- 
trition before  and  after  birth,  man's  his- 
tory is  identical  with  that  of  the  apes; 
and  in  his  developed  structure  the  re- 
semblances with  theirs  are  as  striking 
as  they  are  fundamental.  After  compar- 
ing their  several  organs  with  great  care 
and  exactitude,  Huxley  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  the  structural  differences 
which  separate  man  from  the  gorilla  and 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  39 

the  chimpanzee  are  not  so  great  as  those 
which  separate  the  gorilla  from  the  lower 
apes.  And  this  leads  directly  to  the  con- 
clusion which  so  horrified  Huxley's  gen- 
eration. If  animals  of  similar  structure 
and  function  are  ever  descended  from 
common  ancestors,  then  there  is  no  ra- 
tional ground  for  doubting,  either  that 
the  human  species  might  have  origi- 
nated by  differentiation  from  the  simian, 
or  that  both  are  modified  ramifications 
of  a  common  ancestral  stock.  Now  Dar- 
win's investigations  prove  that  species  do, 
sometimes  at  any  rate,  originate  through 
modifications  in  the  co-descendants  of 
common  ancestors.  Accordingly,  Huxley 
regarded  the  simian  origin  of  man  as 
highly  probable.  And  it  afforded  in- 
tense satisfaction  to  his  craving  for  scien- 
tific explanation  to  be  able  to  trace  the 
condition  of  the  entire  organic  world, 
as  Lyell  had  traced  that  of  the  inorganic, 
to  the  efficiency  of  causes  still  operating 
about  us. 

There  is,  as  I  have  already  intimated, 
a  feeling  - —  I  think  I  may  say  a  convictioiT 
—  among  scientists  of  the  present  day 
that    the    Darwinian    theory   of   descent 


40  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

with  modifications  has  been  pushed  too 
far,  and  that  corollaries  have  been  drawn 
from  it  which  a  longer  and  more  accurate 
acquaintance  with  the  facts  shows  to  be 
altogether  unwarranted.  Something  like 
a  reaction  from  earlier  Darwinism  seems 
now  in  full  force.  In  time  the  limits  of 
the  new  truth  will  be  defined.  Meanwhile 
Ave  are  in  doubt  and  uncertainty.  In 
striking  contrast  is  Darwin's  own  assur- 
ance of  man's  descent  from  the  lower 
animals.  In  the  postscript  to  a  letter  to 
Lyell,  written  as  early  as  January,  1850, 
he  tells  his  friend  that  he  has  a  "  pleasant 
genealogy  for  mankind"  ;  and  describes 
our  remotest  ancestor  as  an  "  animal  which 
breathed  water,  had  a  swim-bladder,  a 
great  swimming  tail,  an  imperfect  skull, 
and  was  undoubtedly  an  hermaphrodite  !  " 
Be  it  so  !  Yet 

"  A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that." 

If  at  the  beginning  he  starts  with  the 
brute,  and  if  at  the  end  his  body  may 
return  to  the  basest  uses,  still  'twere  to 
consider  too  curiously  to  consider  so, 
unless  we  also  observed  that  this  quin- 
tessence of  dust  is  not  only  the  paragon 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  41 

of  animals,  but  the  one  self-conscious 
denizen  of  our  world,  noble  in  reason, 
infinite  in  faculty,  in  action  like  an  angel, 
in  apprehension  like  a  God.  Assume,  I 
say,  that  Darwin's  "pleasant  genealogy 
for  mankind"  should  pass  muster  with 
the  herald's  college  of  contemporary  biol- 
ogy. What  matters  it  that  you  have 
come  from  brutishness,  if  you  are  come  to 
humanity?  What  matters  it  that  your 
ancestor  was  an  ape,  if  you  are  a  man  1  I 
ask  not  what  you  are  derived  from,  but 
what  you  have  arrived  at?  The  vital 
matter  is  not  whether  a  man  started  at 
this  point  or  at  that,  but,  in  the  expressive 
slang  of  our  day,  whether  he  "got  there." 
If  you  are  conscious  of  the  dignity  and 
responsibility  of  human  living,  you  will 
survey  with  indifference  speculations  con- 
cerning the  origin  of  your  race,  knowing 
that  you  are  not  one  whit  the  better  or 
the  worse  whether  it  started  with  a  fallen 
archangel  or  an  exalted  ape.  Of  course 
Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Yere  might  see  peril 
to  her  "hundred  coats-of-arms."  But 
that  in  a  democratic  community  like  ours, 
where  worth  and  not  birth  is  the  test  of 
manhood,  there  should  be  an  aversion  to 


42  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

Darwin's  doctrine  of  the  descent  of  man 
as  degrading  to  humanity,  is  a  curious 
illustration  of  •  the  tenacity  with  which 
sentiments  survive  the  institutions  and 
beliefs  which  made  them  appropriate,  and 
live  on  even  when  they  have  become  irra- 
tional and  absurd.  If  men  are  to  be 
judged,  not  by  what  they  are,  but  by 
what  they  came  from,  not  only  biology, 
not  only  science,  but  common  experience 
as  well  will  force  us  to  a  complete  revision 
of  our  estimate  of  mankind.  If  any  one 
of  us  could  trace  his  pedigree  through  a 
hundred  generations,  he  would  find  at  the 
other  end  a  naked  savage  but  little  re- 
moved from  the  brutes.  Nay,  a  short 
time  ago  and  you  yourself  were  merely  a 
germ  which  no  ordinary  power  of  dis- 
crimination could  distinguish  from  an 
incipient  puppy.  But  these  facts  are 
neither  degrading  nor  brutalizing  to  your 
humanity.  They  put  on  you  no  obliga- 
tion to  scalp  your  neighbors,  or  to  grovel 
on   all   fours.      You   are — not  what  you 

\have  come  from,  but  what  you  have  become. 

'And  the  knowledge  of  your  lowly  begin- 
nings should  give  you  faith  and  hope 
in  your  capacity  for  still  higher  things. 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  43 

There  may  be  atavism,  there  may  be  re- 
version to  primitive  types ;  but  the  general 
tendency  of  evolution  being  to  fuller  and 
better  life,  it  is  assuredly  the  destiny  of 
man  to 

"  Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast, 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die." 

No  one  knew  this  better  than  Huxley. 
Asserting,  on  the  one  hand,  that  no  abso- 
lute line  of  demarcation  could  be  drawn 
between  the  structure  of  man  and  the 
structure  of  the  animals  next  below  him, 
and  holding  that  even  the  highest  faculties 
of  the  human  mind  begin  to  germinate  in 
lower  forms  of  life,  the  evolutionary  biol- 
ogist was  also  profoundly  conscious  of  the 
vastness  of  the  gulf  between  civilized  man 
and  the  brutes,  and  he  declared,  in  felici- 
tous and  striking  terms,  that  "  whether 
from  them  or  not,  man  is  assuredly  not  of  j 
them."  This  Agnosticism  does  not  touch 
the  dignity  or  the  spiritual  vocation  of 
man.  True,  Huxley  did  not,  as  he  aptly 
put  it,  "  base  man's  dignity  upon  his  great 
toe,  or  insinuate  that  we  are  lost  if  an  ape 
has  a  hippocampus  minor."  What  he 
did  was  to  raise  a  simple  question  of  fact, 


44  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

naixiely,  whether  the  human  species  did 
not  strongly  resemble  the  simian,  and  to 
suggest  an  explanation,  namely,  whether 
they  might  not  have  had  a  common  origin. 
This  is  the  meaning  of  Huxley's  Agnosti- 
cism in  relation  to  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  man.  At  this  distance  of  time 
nothing  could  seem  more  harmless  or  less 
disquieting. 

I  have  now  examined  the  case  of  Evo- 
lution versus  Creation  and  the  case  of 
Pithecus  versus  Adam.  There  remains, 
to  complete  our  survey  of  the  Agnosti- 
cism developed  by  Huxley,  the  case  of 
Science  versus  Revelation.  This  issue  I 
have  to  some  extent  already  anticipated. 
The  conflict  between  the  evolutional  and 
the  creational  theories  of  the  origin  of  liv- 
ing beings,  and  particularly  of  man,  is  a 
part  —  and  a  part  of  great  strategic  im- 
portance '■ —  of  the  general  warfare  between 
Science  and  Revelation.  To  this  com- 
prehensive issue  itself  I  now  briefly  in- 
vite your  attention. 

As  ordinarily  understood.  Revelation 
gives  us  inerrant  truth  on  infallible  author- 
ity. Science  yields  provisional  theories 
with   no   better   warrant   than  uncontra- 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  45 

dieted  experienee.  At  first  sight  Revela- 
tion might  seem  to  be  the  more  fruitful 
and  trustworthy  source  of  knowledge; 
and  the  ages  of  faith  so  regarded  it.  But 
ours  is  an  epoch  of  criticism.  We  de- 
mand the  grounds  of  belief ;  we  suffer  no 
claims  to  pass  on  the  plea  of  their  sanc- 
tity or  of  their  antiquity.  In  this  work 
of  criticism,  the  one  sure  standard  is  ex- 
perience. I  use  the  word  "  experience  " 
in  the  broadest  possible  sense  ;  and  I  say 
that  the  age  of  science  which  has  super- 
vened upon  the  age  of  faith  holds  the 
experience  of  mankind  to  be  the  best  and 
safest  test  of  truth.  We  are  not,  how- 
ever, justified  in  rejecting  everything  that 
transcends  thp  range  of  ordinary  human 
experience./ On  the  contrary,  so  far  as 
we  know,  to-morrow  may  produce  events 
which  yesterday  would  have  been  mira- 
cles. It  is  not  criticism,  it  is  not  science, 
but  it  is  dogmatism  of  the  most  arrant 
type,  to  assert  that  miracles  are  impossible.^ 
What  then  should  be  the  intellectual  atti- 
tude of  the  candid  inquirer  in  regard  to 
assertions  of  miraculous  occurrences  which'j 
claim  to  be  the  sure  word  of  Revelation  — 
inerrant  truth  on  infallible  authority  ?     I 


46  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

answer  unhesitatingly  that,  before  giving 
his  assent  to  those  statements,  such  an 
inquirer  must  satisfy  himself,  first,  that 
there  is  evidence  sufficient  to  show  tEa¥ 
the  events  in  question  actually  happened^^ 
and,  secondly,  that  their  occurrence  is 
insusceptible  of  explanation  on  natural 
grounds.  This  would  involve  a  close 
scrutiny  of  all  the  facts  and  circum- 
stances in  connection  with  every  reported 
miracle,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining 
the  evidential  value  of  the  whole.  Nor 
would  this  be  the  end  of  the  inquiry. 
Besides  this  specific  examination  in  each 
case,  it  would  be  necessary  to  make  a 
general  canvass  of  the  claims  of  Revela- 
tion as  resting  on  infallible  authority  and 
furnishing  inerrant  truth.  Appeals  to 
antiquity,  to  authority,  to  tradition  would 
have  no  more  weight  in  the  settlement  of 
the  question  than  a  fair-minded  judge 
might  consider  the  equitable  due  of  an- 
cient times,  illustrious  names,  and  sayings 
generally  received. 

I  say,  then,  that  the  miraculous  occur- 
rences recorded  in  the  Bible  must  be  sub- 
jected to  those  tests  before  any  critical  in- 
quirer can  be  asked  to  accept  or  reject  them. 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  47 

Of  course  the  natural  events  described  by 
the  sacred  writers  will  be  judged  by  the 
ordinary  canons  of  historic  credibility. 
In  the  light  of  these  criteria,  we  may  now 
ask  what  attitude  our  Agnostic  scientist 
assumed  in  relation  to  the  claims  of  ReveJ 
lation.  I  can,  I  think,  describe  his  posi- 
tion in  a  very  few  words.  In  the  first 
place,  Huxley  finds  that,  while  in  some 
cases  the  sacred  books  of  Revelation  de- 
clare that  certain  events  happened  in  a 
certain  fashion,  the  secular  books  of  Sci- 
ence prove  that  they  did  not.  And,  in 
the  second  place,  Huxley  finds  that  while,, 
in  other  cases,  the  wonderful  statements 
of  the  Bible  are  not  contradicted  by  Sci- 
ence, they  are  not  supported  by  inherent 
evidence  sufficient  to  make  them  probable 
or  credible.  The  total  result  is,  both  as 
regards  historical  events  and  supranatural 
occurrences,  that  the  same  liability  tol 
error  and  the  same  intrinsic  improbabil-/ 
ity  which  we  so  readily  recognize  in  the 
narratives  of  the  sacred  books  of  othei^, 
peoples  become  the  portion  of  our  own 
Bible,  which  had  hitherto,  in  almost  uni- 
versal estimation,  been  set  apart  by  the 
notes  of  canonicity,  inerrancy,  and  author- 


48  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

ity.  Huxley  bases  his  conclusion  on  an 
examination  of  typical  specimens  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New ;  and  in  mak- 
ing his  selections  he  showed  a  marked  and 
constant  predilection  for  what  he  called 
the  "  Noachian  Deluge  "  and  "  the  Bedevil- 
ment  of  the  Gadarene  Swine."  For  in- 
sistence on  fact,  for  force  of  reasoning,  for 
lucidity  of  style,  for  the  unconventional 
way  in  which  he  treats  theological  sub- 
jects, for  disregard  of  everything  but 
what  he  believed  the  evidence  in  the 
case,  and  for  the  radical  character  of  his 
results,  Huxley,  in  these  writings,  was  un- 
paralleled in  his  generation  and  in  recent 
times  finds  a  parallel  in  Strauss  alone.  I 
may  add,  too,  that  the  very  general  ap- 
proval which  the  intelligent  public  ac- 
corded to  Huxley's  excursions  into  the 
realm  of  theology  shows  that  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world  had  already  entered 
into  a  new  era  of  thought  and  culture  — 
a  critical  era  in  which  the  barriers  between 
theology  and  reason  have  been  broken 
down,  and  the  most  venerable  dogmas 
left  to  stand  or  fall  with  the  evidence 
adduced  to  support  them. 

Of  course,  the  Bible  contains  myth  and 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  49 

legend,  allegory  and  fable,  poetry  and 
prose ;  and  it  ought  not  to  be  surprising 
that  critical  science  — historical  and  physi- 
cal—  should  discover  errors  in  the  sensu- 
ous setting  of  the  supersensuous  spiritual 
truth  and  life  it  was  intended  to  reveal. 
Grant  that  none  of  the  miracles  reported 
in  the  Old  Testament  occurred,  grant  that 
many  of  the  historical  events  were  very 
different  from  what  the  records  would 
naturally  lead  us  to  suppose  ;  still  Israel's 
vision  of  a  reign  of  righteousness  on  earth 
and  in  heaven  is  to  this  day  verified  in  the 
soul  of  every  good  man  who  studies  their 
laws  and  maxims  or  who  communes  with 
their  psalmists  and  their  prophets.  Or 
look  at  the  New  Testament.  What  if  the 
"Bedevilment  of  the  Gadarene  Swine," 
which  proved  such  a  stumbling-block  to 
Huxley,  never  took  place  ;  what  if  all 
the  miraculous  occurrences  in  the  natural 
world  recorded  in  the  Gospels  were  the 
fantastic  tribute  of  a  pious  generation, 
unskilled  in  the  art  of  writing  history  and 
ignorant  of  the  constancy  of  nature's  laws, 
to  a  transcendent  personality  who  com- 
manded their  loyalty,  touched  all  the 
springs  of  their  affection,  and  thrilled  their 


50  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

souls  with  a  consuming  sense  of  tiie  inalien- 
able and  indefeasible  nearness  of  man  to 
\  God  ?  Would  not  that  miracle  of  miracles 
Will  remain,  —  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  won- 
der-worker of  human  history  ?  And  would 
not  the  purpose  of  His  coming  —  "I  am 
come  that  ye  might  have  life  and  that 
ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly  "  —  be 
fulfilled  in  the  revelation  He  made,  not 
only  through  His  teachings  but  in  His 
human  life,  both  of  the  actual  fatherliness 
of  God  and  the  potential  divineness  of 
man?  These  are  spiritual  truths  which 
neither  age  can  stale  nor  custom  wither, 
which  no  science  can  disprove  and  no 
criticism  discredit ;  they  are  truths  which 
transcend  both  the  order  of  nature  and  the 
secular  history  of  humanity  ;  yet  truths 
which,  once  revealed  and  incarnated  by 
the  divine  "Son  of  Man,"  approve  them- 
selves eternal  verities  to  our  religious 
intuition  and  feeling  —  that  divining  in- 
telligence 

"  Whose  kingdom  is  where  time  and  space  are  not." 

I  do  not  think  that  Christian  faith 
should  be  shaken  or  disturbed  by  new 
interpretations  of  the   Bible.     That  the 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  51 

essence  of  it  is  imperishable  truth  —  truth 
of  the  spiritual  order  —  the  heart  of  man 
will  perennially  attest.  Intrinsic  falsity 
—  what  Plato  called  the  lie  in  the  soul  — 
not  even  the  veriest  sceptic  has  asserted 
of  the  sacred  writings.  But  we  have  this 
treasure  of  spiritual  truth  in  ''  earthen 
vessels."  The  scenes  in  space  and  events 
in  time  which  represent  it  to  one  age  of 
culture  may  misrepresent  it  to  another. 
In  the  lapse  of  ages  the  portrayal  may 
become  a  caricature.  Whenever  such  a 
crisis  arrives,  men  become  so  absorbed  in 
destroying  the  trappings  of  truth  that  they 
lose  sight  of  the  majestic  figure  these  were 
intended  to  set  off  and  decorate.  Your 
destructive  critic  is  forever  missing  the 
eternal  essence  of  truth  in  his  pursuit  of 
the  changeable  and  perishable  forms  of  its 
embodiment.  Cosmogonical  legends,  di- 
dactic chronicles,  wonderful  stories  of  non- 
natural  occurrences  in  nature,  served  to 
convey  spiritual  truth  to  earlier  and  more 
ignorant  generations  of  mankind.  But 
in  themselves  these  things  are  devoid  of 
spiritual  efficacy.  They  are  merely  the 
bells  to  call  primitive  peoples  to  church. 
Sweet  as  the  music  they  once  made,  mod- 


62  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

ern  ears  find  them  jangling  and  out  of 
tune ;  and  their  dissonant  notes  scare 
away  pious  souls  who  would  fain  enter 
the  temple  of  worship.  In  the  divinely 
ordered  education  of  the  race,  man  has 
progressed  so  far  that  he  is  now  capable 
of  apprehending  in  its  purity  that  spirit- 
ual truth  which  was  set  forth  to  earlier 
generations  in  the  forms  of  theophanies, 
miracles,  and  extraordinary  scenes  and 
occurrences.  What  the  devout  scholar, 
and  the  devout  scientist  of  modern  times 
yearns  for  is,  not  the  theology  of  Christ- 
endom, but  the  religion  of  Christ.  That 
religion  I  call  the  absolute  religion.  It 
is  not  true  because  it  is  in  the  Bible  ;  it  is 
in  the  Bible  because  it  is  eternally  true. 
Its  forms  may  change ;  its  embodiments 
may  perish  ;  its  records  may  pass  away ; 
for  all  these  belong  to  the  world  of  sense 
and  may  fall  a  prey  to  the  contingencies  of 
time ;  but  the  religion  which  Jesus  lived 
and  taught  will  endure  as  long  as  the 
human  soul  itself,  which  it  is  the  glory  of 
that  religion  to  have  bound  indissolubly  to 
its  Divine  Original.  The  Christian  relig- 
ion, as  a  system  of  dogmatic  theology,  is 
already  obsolescent  (even  in  the  churches, 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  53 

or  in  many  of  them,  it  is  an  alien  and  un- 
heeded survival) ;  but  the  religion  of  Christ 
is  still  fresh  with  the  dews  of  immortal  ■ 
youth  and  pregnant  with  abounding  life 
to  quicken  the  souls  of  all  the  children  of 
men.  Throughout  Christendom  there  has 
been  a  recoil  of  men's  minds  from  creed  to 
personality.  The  evolution  of  our  relig- 
ion brings  us  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth 
century  back  to  Christ  Himself. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  Huxley's  treat- 
ment of  the  Christian  religion  seems  to 
me  especially  unsatisfactory.  Evolutionist 
as  he  was,  he  overlooked  the  fact  that  both 
Christianity  and  the  interpretation  of  its 
records  are  subject  to  the  law  of  evolution. 
Now  in  theology,-  as  in  other  provinces  of 
inquiry,  the  idea  of  development  has  be- 
come the  master  light  of  all  our  seeing. 
In  a  world  where  everything  changes  and 
grows,  where  the  mind  of  man  enlarges, 
we  naturally  look  for  new  experiences  of 
religion,  new  conceptions  of  the  Bible, 
and  new  expositions  of  doctrine.  These 
changes  are  the  phases  of  an  evolving  life, 
and,  rightly  considered,  they  witness  to 
the  inherent  vitality  of  Christianity.  If 
creeds   are  shifting,  it  is   only  that   they 


54  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

may  the  better  adjust  themselves  to  that 
more  correct  interpretation  of  God's  reve- 
lation to  and  in  man  which  in  the  progress 
of  the  ages  the  human  mind  is  continu- 
ously attaining  to.  Such  a  modification 
of  creeds  means  the  purification,  simpli- 
fication, and  rejuvenation  of  Christian 
theology.  But  Huxley  read  such  trans- 
formations of  dogma  as  the  annihilation 
of  theology.  As  though  a  man  must  re- 
pudiate Christianity  because  unable  to 
accept  the  creed  of  his  grandmother ! 
Huxley  was  led  into  this  absurdity  by 
the  assumption  (utterly  foreign  though 
it  is  to  the  spirit  of  modern  scholarship) 
that  if  the  Bible  be  not  history,  —  a  literal 
record  and  chronicle  of  events  which  act- 
ually happened,  —  it  is  not  possible  for  us 
to  have  a  Christian  theology  or,  if  I  un- 
derstand him  aright,  even  a  Christian 
religion.  A  Christianity  independent  of 
time  and  place,  eternally  true,  and  veri- 
fied by  every  soul  that  finds  it  and  which 
it  finds,  —  a  spiritual  religion  as  indiffer- 
ent to  history  as  it  is  to  science,  transcend- 
ing both,  and  holding  the  high  places  of 
the  human  spirit;  this  is  something  Hux- 
ley never  dreamt  of.    Christianity  must  be 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  55 

"  historical "  in  all  its  details  or  it  is  — 
illusion!  Nay,  "Christian  theology,"  he 
tells  us  in  the  controversial  essay  on  "  The 
Lights  of  the  Church  and  the  Light  of  Sci- 
ence," "  must  stand  or  fall  with  the  historl 
ical  trustworthiness  of  the  Jewish  Script-^ 
ures."  It  is  all  up  with  Christianity,  if 
those  definite  and  detailed  Old  Testament 
narratives  of  apparently  real  events  are  not 
actually  historical,  —  if  the  covenant  with 
Abraham  was  not  made,  if  circumcision 
was  not  ordained  by  Jehovah,  if  the  deca- 
logue was  not  written  by  God's  hand  on 
the  stone  tables,  if  Abraham  is  more  or  less 
a  mythical  heto,  the  story  of  the  deluge  a 
fiction,  that  of  the  fall  a  legend,  and  that 
of  creation  the  dream  of  a  seer !  One 
would  ordinarily  say  that,  if  these  events 
are  not  historical,  there  is  room  in  that 
great  collection  of  books  we  call  the  Bible 
for  other  and  higher  forms  of  literary  ex- 
pression than  the  sober  chronicle  of  the 
historian;  and  that  the  truths  of  poetry, 
parable,  and  legend  may  be  more  important 
and  fruitful  for  constructive  theology  than 
the  truths  of  history.  Not  so  Huxley. 
He  v.dll  have  nothing  but  history.  And 
turning,  in  the  essay  on  ''  Agnosticism  and 


56  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

Christianity,"  to  the  New  Testament,  he 
lays  bare  its  unhistorical  features  by  dis- 
secting the  story  of  the  Gadarene  swine,- 
demonstrating  its  incredibility,  and  conse- 
quently bringing  under  suspicion  all  other 
stories  of  demoniac  possession.  But  if  the 
" demonological  part  of  Christianity"  be 
rejected,  Huxley  holds  that  the  testimony 
of  Jesus,  who  accepted  that  demonology, 
to  the  spiritual  world  —  His  declaration  of 
the  personality,  fatherhood,  and  loving 
providence  of  God  —  will  have  been  pro- 
foundly impaired,  if  it  is  not  indeed  ren- 
dered absolutely  valueless.  As  Huxley  put 
it  in  his  rejoinder  to  Gladstone,  entitled 
"The  Keepers  of  the  Herd  of  Swine," 
"the  authority  of  the  teachings  of  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  touching  the  nature  of 
the  spiritual  world,  turns  upon  the  accept- 
ance, or  the  rejection,  of  the  Gadarene 
and  other  like  stories." 

It  is  humiliating  to  think  that  the 
wretched  pigs  of  Gadara  may  make  or 
unmake  our  religious  faith.  For  my  own 
part,  I  cannot  for  a  moment  assent  to 
such  a  view.  And  I  have  already  ac- 
quainted you  with  some  of  the  grounds 
which  compel  me  to  reject  it.     I  will  here 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  57 

only  illustrate  my  position  by  a  reference 
to  that  book  which  men  and  women  of  Eng- 
lish speech  are  in  the  habit  of  mentioning 
next  after  the  Bible  —  I  mean,  of  course, 
the  dramas  of  Shakespeare.  Let  me  ask 
you  to  consider  for  a  moment  two  of  those 
plays, —  " Hamlet "  and  "Macbeth."  In 
these  dramas  the  actors  are  not  all  human 
beings ;  witches  and  ghosts  come  upon 
the  scene  ;  and  to  Shakespeare  and  his 
contemporaries  these  supernatural  entities 
were  (I  presume)  as  real  as  the  mundane 
characters.  We  have  lost  man's  primitive 
faith  in  the  existence  of  ghosts  and  witches. 
But  "Hamlet"  and  "Macbeth"  are  as 
true  and  significant  to  us  as  they  were  to 
Shakespeare's  contemporaries.  As  a  rev- 
elation of  the  depths  of  human  nature  — 
of  a  soaring  intellect  and  a  paralyzed  will, 
of  the  lust  of  power  and  an  imagination 
that  dallies  with  it  while  painting  also 
the  pangs  of  remorse  —  these  plays  have 
a  worth  and  also  a  vitality  unaffected  by 
the  place  or  time  of  their  production,  or 
even  by  the  perishable  elements  entering 
into  their  composition.  And  you  will  not 
fail  to  note  either  that  our  estimation  of 
the  value  of  these  plays,  our  appreciation 


68  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

of  their  meaning,  and  our  participation  in 
the  author's  insight  are  absolutely  inde- 
pendent of  any  theories  that  may  be 
formed  concerning  the  life  and  character 
of  Shakespeare.  Indeed,  while  the  dramas 
are  the  immortal  heritage  of  our  race,  we 
know  next  to  nothing  of  the  dramatist. 

In  the  same  way  I  apprehend  that,  if 
the  Bible  were  annihilated,  the  religion  of 
Christ  would  be  approved  and  verified  by 
the  religious  consciousness  of  Christen- 
dom. It  was  revealed  that  it  might  be 
received  of  men,  and  the  historical  revela- 
tion has  now  (may  I  not  say  ?)  become  the 
ideal  possession  of  the  human  spirit. 

I  think  Huxley  himself  in  his  later 
years  got  a  glimpse  of  the  truth  that  the 
conflict  between  Science  and  Revelation 
was  to  be  settled  by  the  development  of 
both.  He  came  to  recognize  a  certain 
class  of  inquirers  as  "  scientific  theolo- 
gians," whom  he  opposed  to  "counsels 
for  creeds  "  —  the  advocates  of  "  Clerical- 
ism" and  "Ecclesiasticism."  Those  theo- 
logians he  called  "  scientific,"  because  they 
based  their  assertions,  not  on  authority, 
but  on  evidence.  Here  the  theologian 
and  the  scientist  occupied  common  ground. 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  59 

And  Huxley  could  and  did  appreciate  it. 
But  I  do  not  think  Huxley  ever  recog- 
nized how  much  Revelation  contained, 
and  must  contain,  other  than  propositions 
addressed  to  the  intellect.  Its  peculiar 
field  is  the  emotions,  and  more  particu- 
larly the  moral  and  spiritual  nature  of 
man.  In  this  field  the  watchword  is  not  I 
evidence,  but  inspiration;  the  aim  is  not! 
truth,  but  higher  life.  Huxley,  with  the 
fine  frenzy  for  "  natural  knowledge  "  that 
possessed  him  throughout  all  his  work 
and  controversy,  never  realized  how  much 
of  what  is  best  in  life  lies  outside  that 
restricted  territory.  He  sought,  very 
properly,  to  expel  from  belief  improbable 
stories  of  supernatural  occurrences  amid 
the  regular  flow  of  natural  events  ;  but 
he  never  rose  to  the  full  height  of  the 
argument  from  which  he  might  have  sur- 
veyed natural  causation  as  the  expression 
of  a  Supernatural  Mind  in  nature,  and 
man — a  being  at  once  of  sensibility  and 
of  rational  and  moral  self-activity  V-as  a 
signal  and  ever-present  example  of  the 
interfusion  of  the  natural  with  the  super- 
natural in  that  part  of  universal  existence 
nearest  and  best  known  to  us. 


60  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

I  have  discussed  this  problem  at  too 
great  length,  and  I  must  now  hasten  on. 
There  remain  two  forms  of  Agnosticism 
yet  to  be  mentioned  in  any  adequate  ac- 
count of  Huxley.  One  of  them  we  may 
call  Metaphysical  and  the  other  Logical 
Agnosticism.  The  former  I  must  dismiss 
with  a  word.  Huxley  often  alludes  to  it, 
but  never  attempts  to  establish  or  develop 
it.  It  is  the  dogma  —  the  colossal  dogma 
—  that  the  human  mind  is  incapable  of 
apprehending  God.  A  man  who  can  in- 
telligently frame  that  proposition  should 
be  called  not  agnostic,  but  omniscient. 
For  the  doctrine  means  that  God  is  of 
such  a  nature,  and  the  human  mind  of 
such  a  make,  that  the  two  can  never  come 
together.  Huxley  picked  up  the  tenet 
from  an  essay  of  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
which  he  read  as  a  boy.  And  his  boyish 
credulity  remained  with  him  to  the  end 
of  his  days.  I  have  elsewhere  ^  examined 
the  doctrine,  and  must  here  content  my- 
self with  categorically  rejecting  it  as  "  not 
proven."  That  the  human  mind  is  inca- 
pable of  knowing  anything  of  God,  is  a 
dogma  that  rests  on  no  evidence  whatever. 
1  See  the  next  chapter. 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  61 

The  man  who  propounds  it,  whatever  he 
may  call  himself,  is  the  greatest  dogmatist 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  The  philoso- 
phers who  first  set  it  forth  deduced  it 
from  the  premises  —  the  false  premises  — 
which  they  inherited  from  one-sided  sys- 
tems of  thought.  In  Hume,  it  flows  from 
an  absurd  sensationalism,  in  Kant,  from 
an  equally  absurd  rationalism,  —  both  of 
them  now  happily  obsolete.  And  Hume 
and  Kant  are  the  authorities  whom  Hux- 
ley invokes  to  support  his  theological 
nescience  ! 

The  only  remaining  phase  of  Agnosti- 
cism is  what  I  have  called  Logical  Agnos- 
ticism. This  is  not  a  creed  of  any  kind, 
either  positive  or  negative  ;  it  asserts  no 
tenet,  and  denies  none;  it  connotes  an 
attitude  of  mind  in  dealing  with  evidence, 
"  which  is  as  much  ethical  as  intellectual." 
It  signifies  candor,  open-mindedness,  and  a 
resolute  determination  to  believe  what  the 
facts  warrant,  neither  more  nor  less.  The 
doctrine  that  there  are  propositions  whichi 
men  ought  to  believe  without  logically 
satisfactory  evidence,  or  (in  Dr.  New- 
man's words)  that  "  religious  error  is,  in 
itself,  of  an  immoral  nature,"  is  abhorrent 


62  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

and  shocking  to  the  Agnostic.  Agnosti- 
cism, in  this  sense,  is  synonymous  with  sci- 
entific method  applied  to  every  realm  of 
inquiry.  You  will  find  Agnostics  in  lit- 
erature, history,  theology,  j^hilosophy,  and 
science.  They  bring  existing  beliefs  to 
the  test  of  fact,  with  the  result  of  sus- 
pending, altering,  or  confirming  our  judg- 
ment of  their  validity.  The  Agnostic  is 
a  judge  weighing  evidence,  a  critic  balanc- 
ing conflicting  probabilities. 

This  phase  of  Agnosticism  is  that  in 
which  Huxley  delighted  as  a  champion  of 
intellectual  liberty.  With  an  air  of  superi- 
ority, perhaps  pardonable  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, he  would  fling  it  in  the  teeth 
of  his  creed-bound  opponent,  as  though 
thanking  God  (if  only  there  were  a  God) 
that  he  was  not  as  other  men  or  even  as 
this  poor  "ecclesiastic."  But  the  fact  is 
that  Huxley  missed  the  real  point  of  dif- 
ference between  himself  and  the  "  eccle- 
siastic." Both  of  them  appeal  alike  to 
evidence ;  both  reason  on  the  facts  of 
the  case  in  dispute.  What  distinguishes 
them  is  that  the  sort  of  evidence  which 
convinces  one,  leaves  the  mind  of  the  other 
unmoved.     Their  methods  are  the  same  ; 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  63 

they  are  both  scientific,  critical,  or  (if  you 
will)  agnostic  ;  and  if  they  reach  entirely 
different  results,  it  is  because  the  unex- 
pressed premises  of  their  reasonings  are 
different  and  perhaps  contradictory.  The 
fundamental  assumptions  that  shape  and 
color  all  thinking,  the  psychological  cli- 
mate in  which  the  intellect  lives  and 
works,  the  primal  elements  of  character 
which  remain  below  the  threshold  of  con- 
sciousness, —  these  influence  all  our  beliefs 
and  reasonings,  and  in  a  Huxley  and  a 
Gladstone  they  present  as  wide  diversities 
as  any  of  the  contrary  theories  these 
distinguished  advocates  ever  espoused. 
Think,  for  example,  of  the  impossibility 
of  two  intelligent,  candid,  and  critical 
inquirers  reaching  similar  conclusions  on 
some  religious  dogma,  when  the  bias, 
native  or  acquired,  of  the  one  mind  is 
towards  scientific  naturalism,  and  that 
of  the  other  towards  ecclesiastical  supra- 
naturalism. 

If,  however,  Huxley  meant  by  Agnos- 
ticism the  adoption  of  the  scientific  spirit 
and  method,  there  is  no  investigator  or 
thinker,  whatever  his  creed,  who  would 
not  to-day  write  himself  down  an  Agnos- 


I 


64  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

tic.  One  gets  the  impression,  however, 
that  Huxley's  Agnostic  must  also  be 
hostile  to  conventional  Christianity.  On 
this  latter  point  I  have  already  spoken  to 
you,  and  I  have  no  time  here  to  enlarge 
upon  the  theme.  As  to  the  main  issue 
now  before  us,  I  will  only  repeat  that  if 
Agnosticism  means  merely  the  candid 
examination  and  criticism  of  evidence, 
there  is  no  one  in  this  scientific  age  of 
the  world  who  would  disavow,  no  one 
who  would  not  glory  in,  the  title  of 
Agnostic. 

To  Agnosticism,  in  its  various  forms, 
Huxley  may  be  said  to  have,  consecrated 
his  life.  In  one  of  his  latest  pieces  of 
writing,  —  in  the  preface  to  the  "  Collected 
Essays,"  in  nine  volumes,  which  happily 
he  lived  long  enough  to  see  through  the 
press,  —  he  has  put  on  record  the  main 
objects  of  his  active  career.  They  were, 
in  brief,  veracity  of  thought  and  action, 
the  resolute  facing  of  the  world  as  it 
is,  the  unlocking  of  nature's  secrets  by 
means  of  science,  and  the  application  of 
scientific  methods  of  investigation  to  all 
the  problems  of  life.  If  he  showed  un- 
tiring  opposition   to    clericalism,   to    the 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  65 

spirit  of  ecclesiasticism,  it  was  because 
everywhere  and  to  whatever  denomination 
it  may  belong,  he  regarded  it  as  "the 
deadly  enemy  of  science." 

Few  men,  I  imagine,  have  ever  attained 
more  fully  the  objects  of  their  ambition. 
Huxley  was  the  p^reat  enemy  of  cant,  lyingr 
and  pretending  to  believe  that  for  which 
there  is  no  evidence.  For  this  all  honest 
men  owe  him  a  debt  of  gratitude.  He 
earned  the  praise  of  every  investigator, 
scholar,  and  thinker  by  his  splendid  vindi- 
cation of  intellectual  liberty.  And  even 
theologians  (of  the  future,  if  not  of  the 
present)  may  bless  him  for  exposing  the 
absurdities  of  many  dogmas  which  were 
yesterday  a  part  of  orthodox  Christianity, 
which  to-day  —  thanks  in  some  measure 
to  Huxley  —  have  lost  their  baneful  en- 
ergy, and  which,  dissolved  in  the  light  of 
criticism,  will  to-morrow  flit  to  that  limbo 
of  superstitions,  errors,  and  illusions  which 
fill  so  many  volumes  in  the  history  of  our 
groping  race. 

All  honor  and  glory  to  this  brilliant 
champion  of  light,  and  liberty,  and  truth  I 
He  saw  clearly,  studied  thoroughly,  and 
spoke  boldly. 


66  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 


/ 


Yet  Huxley  had  his  limitations.  His 
horizon  was  restricted  to  his  field  of  labor: 
he  saw  the  natural  world,  but  not  the  su- 
pranatural  which  envelops  it.  His  hand 
was  subdued  to  what  it  worked  in  :  he 
grasped  the  judgments  of  the  intellect, 
but  missed  the  intimations  of  the  spirit 
in  man.  He  lived  in  the  laborator}^  and 
lecture  room  :  no  man  knew  more  of  the 
tests  and  standards  of  physical  science, 
few  men  knew  less  of  the  postulates  and 
principles  of  human  conduct  and  life. 
Huxley's  defects  are  his  excellences  in 
excess.  He  sees  nature  so  thoroughly, 
uses  his  intellect  so  logically,  and  rates 
science  so  highly,  that  he  falls  a  victim  to 
the  vices  of  Naturalism,  Intellectualism, 
and  what  (for  want  of  a  better  word)  I 
will  venture  to  call  Scientificism. 

I  have  already  shown  that  evolutionary 
science  furnishes  no  warrant  for  that  natu- 
ralistic view  of  the  universe  which  domi- 
nates all  Huxley's  speculations.  Nay,  one  V 
may  be  an  Agnostic,  as  well  as  an  Evolu- 
tionist, and  yet  recognize  the  divine  and 
suprasensible  Presence  in  and  above  the 
physical  universe.  I  will  explain  what  I 
mean  by  a  comparison.     Martineau  would 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  67 

agree  with  Huxley  in  demanding  evidence, 
instead  of  authority,  for  religious  belief  ; 
and,  as  Huxley  uses  the  term,  Martineau 
would  therefore  be  an  Agnostic.  Never- 
theless I  venture  to  assert  that  no  man 
now  living  has  done  so  much  to  strengthen 
faith  in  a  free  moral  intelligence  immanent 
in,  yet  transcending,  the  natural  world  and 
holding  communion  with  the  finite  but 
kindred  spirits  who  inhabit  it.  As  bib- 
lical critics,  Huxley  and  Martineau  occupy 
pretty  much  the  same  position;  as  spirit- 
ual influences,  revealing  the  divine  essence 
of  things,  the  one  radiates  light  and  warmth 
for  the  English-speaking  world,  the  other 
stands  opaque  and  cold  beside  the  extin- 
guished fires  of  an  altar  to  the  unknown 
God. 

^  But  if  Huxley's  contentment  with  the 
mere  physical  interpretations  of  science 
was  fatal  to  a  theistic  conception  of  the 
world,  if  his  Naturalism  left  no  place  for 
the  supersensuous  and  divine,  his  devo- 
tion to  the  ascertainment  of  truth  by 
means  of  logical  processes  incapacitated 
him  for  taking  a  just  view  of  the  human 
spirit  and  foredoomed  him  to  a  narrow 
and   one-sided    Intellectualism.   ^Knowl- 


68  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

edge  is  only  one  of  the  functions  of  mind. 
Mere  intellectual  assent  or  denial  marks 
but  a  small  part  of  the  essential  life  of 
consciousness.  If  any  of  you  have  read 
Disraeli's  "  Coningsby  "  you  will  recall  the 
striking  passage  in  which  Sidonia  shows 
how  little  reason  has  contributed  to  the 
great  events  of  human  history.  It  was 
not  reason,  he  says,  that  besieged  Troy ; 
it  was  not  reason  that  sent  forth  the  Sara- 
cen from  the  desert  to  conquer  the  world ; 
it  was  not  reason  that  inspired  the  Cru- 
sader or  instituted  the  monastic  orders ; 
it  was  not  reason  that  created  the  French 
Revolution.  The  true  greatness  of  man 
is  to  be  found  in  his  capacity  for  forming 
and  cherishing  ideals.  In  this  age  of 
brilliant  scientific  achievements  issuing  in 
manifold  conveniences  and  luxuries,  I  fear 
we  have  all  been  seduced  into  worship- 
ping the  golden  calf  of  Intellectualism. 
It  would  ill  become  me,  in  this  place  and 
before  this  audience,  to  disparage  the 
value  of  scientific  investigation  or  to  dis- 
courage whole-hearted  devotion  to  the 
ascertainment  of  truth.  But  I  cannot 
forbear  to  observe  that  the  spirit  which 
each  of  us  is  consists  not  of  intellect  or 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  69 

reason  alone.  And  this  discernment  of 
the  real  constitution  of  human  nature  is 
not  without  important  consequences.  For 
one  thing,  it  follows  that  the  maxims 
which  are  binding  on  the  scientist  in 
the  investigation  of  nature  may  be  irrele- 
vant or  even  injurious  to  the  rest  of  man- 
kind who  are  engaged  in  other  affairs. 
For  the  scientist,  Huxley  says,  "  scepti- 
cism is  the  highest  of  duties  ;  blind  faith 
the  one  unpardonable  sin."  Now  if  this 
be  the  duty  of  the  scientist,  it  is  not 
the  duty  of  the  parent  or  child,  of  the 
statesman  or  teacher,  of  the  merchant  or 
manufacturer,  of  the  clerk  or  financier. 
Nay,  has  not  every  true  man  faith  — 
"blind  faith"  —  in  his  mother  and  in  his 
friends,  in  his  country,  and  in  the  rule  ; 
of  Eternal  Providence  ?  It  is,  unhappily, 
true  that  the  scientist's  devotion  to  "  scep- 
ticism "  may  unfit  him  for  living  that 
larger  life  which  breathes  the  atmosphere 
of  faith.  Darwin  observed  in  his  own 
case  an  atrophy  of  the  poetic  and  lesthetic 
sensibilities;  and  readers  of  his  life  will 
feel  that  his  religious  faith  suffered  decay 
from  the  same  cause.  Cramping  and 
warping  is  the  penalty  of   specialization 


I 


70  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

along  whatever  line  it  follow.  But  the 
/  fact  remains  that  for  living  our  human 
'  lives  faith  is  as  essential  as  scepticism, 
nay,  far  more  essential.  It  was  his  fail- 
ure to  comprehend  the  depths  and  riches 
of  the  human  spirit,  whose  logical  opera- 
tions alone  concerned  him  as  a  scientist, 
that  led  Huxley  to  the  shrine  of  Intellect- 
ualism,  whose  creed,  however  fruitful  for 
science,  becomes,  if  applied  beyond  the 
domain  of  science,  a  desecration  and  blight 
to  the  whole  spiritual  and  active  life  of 
humanity. 

A  few  words  on  what  I  have  called 
Huxley's  Scientificism,  and  I  will  bid  you 
good  night.  By  this  term  I  mean  to 
designate  the  astonishing  prejudice  that 
the  scientific  investigator,  the  man  who 
has  great  knowledge  of  the  natural  world, 
is,  as  such,  an  authority  on  the  things  of 
the  spirit.  This  is  a  prejudice  which 
indicates  no  self-conceit  in  Huxley;  for 
he  shared  it  with  the  generations  that 
have  grown  up  in  the  atmosphere  of 
modern  science.  We  all  want  to  know 
what  Darwin  or  Helmholtz  or  any  other 
oracle  of  the  natural  world  thought  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  problems  which  weigh 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  71 

upon  US.  We  find,  however,  through 
mournful  disappointments,  that  they  have 
little  or  nothing  to  tell  us.  They  have 
had  no  special  experience  that  way,  if  in- ' 
deed  their  minds  have  not  been  closed  to 
this  order  of  reality.  In  consulting  them 
our  age  has  made  the  mistake  of  confer- 
ring with  perhaps  the  worst-qualified  ex- 
ponents of  the  spiritual  world  to  whom  it 
was  possible  to  address  such  inquiries. 
Mr.  Gladstone  has  recently  recorded  it,  as 
a  generalization  of  his  long  experience 
with  Englishmen  of  every  class  and  type, 
that  the  description  of  persons  who  are 
engaged  in  political  employment  or  who 
are  in  any  way  habitually  conversant  with 
human  nature,  conduct,  and  concerns  are 
very  much  less  borne  down  by  scepticism 
than  specialists  of  various  kinds  and  those 
whose  pursuits  have  associated  them  with 
the  study,  history,  and  framework  of  in- 
animate nature.  How  can  this  latter  class 
be  expected  to  tell  us  anything  about  that 
of  which  they  have  had  no  experience  ? 
The  oracle  to  consult  in  matters  of  religion 
is  the  man  of  faith  and  action,  not  the  man 
of  scepticism  and  science.  His  reports  of 
the  spiritual  world,  as  verified  in  his  own 


72  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

life,  are  entitled  to  the  same  weight  as  the 
observations,  verified  by  artificial  experi- 
ment, which  the  scientist  reports  of  the 
natural  world.  If  the  one  is  our  authority 
for  scientific  belief,  the  other  is  entitled 
to  be  our  authority  for  religious  faith.  I 
will  not  here  name  our  highest  authority 
for  belief  and  trust  in  God.  It  is  enough 
that  you  address  your  inquiries  to  any 
man  of  action  who  allied  himself  with 
moral  causes  and  worked  for  spiritual 
ends.  I  take  at  random  a  product  of  our 
own  native  soil. 

Huxley  says  that  Darwin  was  "  the  in- 
corporated ideal  of  a  man  of  science."  I 
should  say  that  Lincoln  was  the  incorpo- 
rated ideal  of  a  man  of  action.  Charles 
Darwin  and  Abraham  Lincoln!  These 
are  the  two  greatest  names  of  the  century. 
The  one  wrought  a  revolution  in  natural 
science,  the  other  in  the  affairs  and  insti- 
tutions of  his  own  country.  There  are 
strange  coincidences  in  the  lives  of  these 
two  men.  Both  were  born  on  the  12th 
day  of  February,  1809.  The  Englishman 
had  the  advantage  of  a  refined  home,  a 
school  and  college  education,  travel  and 
study  abroad,  and  the  leisure  of  a  lifetime 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  73 

to  meditate  and  write.  Lincoln  was  born 
in  a  log-cabin  in  Kentucky,  went  to  school 
for  less  than  a  year,  worked  as  a  common 
farm  laborer  till  he  became  of  age,  and 
served  afterwards  as  a  boatman,  a  clerk,  a 
storekeeper,  a  soldier,  a  postmaster,  and  a 
surveyor,  until  finally  he  became  a  lawyer 
and  in  1834  was  elected  to  the  legislature 
of  Illinois.  For  the  next  two  decades 
Lincoln  lived  a  comparatively  uneventful 
life,  not  distinguishing  himself  above  his 
contemporaries,  and  had  he  died  before 
1857  the  world  would  never  have  heard 
his  name.  Throughout  this  same  period 
Darwin,  in  studious  retirement,  unknown 
to  the  public,  was  chewing  the  cud  of 
natural  selection.  At  the  same  time 
both  men  were  suddenly  pushed  into 
prominence  and  publicity,  and  had  fame 
thrust  upon  them,  by  the  action  of  illus- 
trious rivals  who  threatened  to  pluck 
their  foreordained  honors.  The  inciting 
genius  of  the  one  was  Wallace  ;  of  the 
other,  Douglas.  Alike  moved  to  action  in 
1858,  Darwin  published  the  first  outline 
of  a  new  theory  of  the  origin  of  species, 
which  was  destined  to  put  him  at  the 
head  of  modern  science ;  and  Lincoln  de- 


74  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

livered  his  "  divided  house  "  speech,  which 
made  him  two  years  later  President  of  the 
United  States. 

Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  world 
did  a  ruler  come  to  so  dubious  and  diffi- 
cult an  estate.  The  Republic  was  already 
in  the  throes  of  dismemberment.  Lincoln 
himself,  who  had  been  elected  by  a  popu- 
lar vote  a  million  smaller  than  that  re- 
ceived by  the  three  defeated  candidates, 
was  an  object  of  distrust  and  prejudice  to 
a  majority  of  the  people  and  of  ridicule 
and  contempt  to  a  not  inconsiderable  mi- 
nority. His  party  was  made  up  of  dis- 
cordant elements ;  and  the  opposite  party 
was  suspicious  and  hostile.  There  were 
no  leaders  who  commanded  the  confidence 
of  the  public,  either  in  statesmanship  or 
in  war.  The  army,  small  as  it  was,  was 
scattered,  and  many  of  its  officers  had 
deserted.  There  was  no  money  in  the 
treasury,  and  the  national  credit  was 
sinking.  The  seceding  states,  which  had 
long  been  preparing  for  the  contest,  im- 
mediately organized  under  a  strong  cen- 
tral government ;  and  their  organization, 
their  unity  of  purpose  and  community  of 
interest,  their  previous  habits  and  experi- 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  75 

ence,  their  matchless  generals,  and  their 
immediately  available  military  resources 
gave  them  at  the  outset  an  enormous 
advantage.  The  great  powers  of  West- 
ern Europe  manifested  a  cold  neutrality, 
and  cherished  a  secret  hostility,  towards 
the  national  government ;  and  their  sym- 
pathy and  moral  support  were  given  to 
the  confederates.  Yet  from  all  these  dire 
circumstances  the  inexperienced  man  of 
the  prairies  wrested  immortal  victory. 
He  united  his  own  party,  enlisted  the 
support  of  the  opposition,  and  won  the 
confidence  of  the  people.  At  his  call 
soldiers  poured  into  the  army  and  money 
into  the  treasury.  Terrible  disasters  were 
followed  by  brilliant  victories,  by  Vicks- 
burg,  by  Gettysburg,  and  by  the  march 
from  Atlanta  to  the  Sea.  Almost  by  accla- 
mation the  great  leader  was  re-elected  to 
the  Presidency.  And  before  sealing  the 
immortal  work  with  his  martyr's  blood, 
he  saw  the  confederacy  overthrown,  the 
union  re-established,  and  the  slave  set 
free.  His  memory  is  the  most  precious 
heritage  of  the  American  people ;  they 
recognize  in  their  great  war  President  — 
"kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man" 


76  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

—  a   fellow- worker    with    Divine    Provi- 
dence. 

This  is  the  man  of  action,  engaged  in 
noble  struggles,  whose  testimony  I  would 
seek  in  regard  to  religious  faith.  If 
Darwin's  spiritual  powers  were  atrophied 
by  his  absorbing  preoccupation  with  the 
phenomena  of  the  natural  world;  if,  like 
the  domestic  duck  whose  wings,  he  tells 
us,  have  become  shrunken  and  useless 
from  disuse,  the  pinions  of  his  own  soul, 
disabled  for  want  of  exercise,  refused  to 
soar  above  the  solid  ground  of  nature's 
familiar  scenes  and  occurences;  and  if 
the  glances  he  sometimes  cast  into  the 
depths  of  the  distant  heavens  only  brought 
him  a  deeper  sense  of  "  the  heavy  and  the 
weary  weight  of  all  this  unintelligible 
world,"  which  he  nevertheless  conjectured 
must  have  a  Divine  Artificer  ;  —  if,  I  say, 
the  most  scientific  of  theoretic  inquirers 
has  no  experience  that  brings  authentic 
tidings  of  a  reality  beyond  the  veil  of 
sense,  let  us  turn  to  the  doer  of  deeds  of 
justice  and  righteousness  and  see  whether 
the  orbit  of  his  best  endeavor  has  ever 
seen  the  light  of  Infinite  Goodness  or  felt 
the  touch  and  thrill  of  Will  Omnipotent. 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  77 

Now,  it  is  a  happy  circumstance  that 
our  "first  American,"  as  Lowell  calls  him, 
leaves  us  in  no  doubt  either  as  to  the 
fact  of  his  faith  in  God  or  as  to  the 
power  which  that  faith  gave  him  in  doing 
what  history,  I  think,  will  pronounce  the 
supreme  work  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Indeed,  Lincoln  talked  with  such  serene 
confidence,  such  perfect  assurance  of  pious 
faith,  that  some  persons  believed  him  to  be 
superstitious.  Certainly  the  veil  between 
the  natural  and  the  supranatural  was  for 
him  neither  thick  nor  opaque.  God  ruled 
the  world  in  righteousness,  and  men  were 
the  servants  and  instruments  of  His  rule : 
such  was  the  faith  that  thrilled  in  every 
drop  of  Lincoln's  blood.  "  I  know,"  he 
said  to  his  friend  Bateman  not  long  before 
the  war,  "  I  know  that  there  is  a  God,  and 
He  hates  injustice  and  slavery."  And  again : 
"Douglas  don't  care  whether  slavery  is 
voted  up  or  down,  but  God  cares,  and 
humanity  cares,  and  I  care;  and  with 
God's  help  I  shall  not  fail."  A  greater 
than  Lincoln  has  said :  "  If  any  man  will 
do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doc- 
trine, whether  it  be  of  God."  Moral 
action  is  the  road  to  spiritual  intuition. 


78  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

This  great  truth,  which  the  world  is 
always  ignoring,  was  splendidly  verified 
in  and  by  Lincoln.  He  took  his  stand 
on  principle ;  he  did  what  was  right ;  and 
the  right  approved  itself  in  his  conscious- 
ness the  law  and  will  of  a  righteous  God, 
with  infinite  power  at  its  disposal.  Thus 
right  makes  might.  Thus  Lincoln  saved 
the  Republic.  And  I  wish  to  say  deliber- 
ately, after  reading  many  lives  of  Lincoln 
and  trying  to  understand  the  history  of 
the  Civil  War,  that  in  my  opinion  the 
Union  could  not  have  been  restored  with- 
out the  unseen,  but  none  the  less  real, 
power  which  came  to  the  nation  through 
Lincoln's  belief  in  God  and  confidence  in 
His  moral  government  of  the  world. 

Nor  was  Lincoln's  faith  a  matter  of  tra- 
dition. It  rested  on  no  external  authority 
whatever,  not  even  the  Bible,  —  a  book 
which,  with  Shakespeare,  always  lay  on 
his  table  and  which  he  read  every  day. 
"No,"  he  said  in  answer  to  Chittenden's 
question  whether  it  must  not  all  depend 
on  our  faith  in  the  Bible,  "no,  there  is  the 
element  of  personal  experience."  And,  let 
me  add,  that  this  basis  of  religion  is  pre- 
cisely the   same    as   that    which    science 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  79 

enjoys ;  for  the  principle  of  the  uniform- 
ity of  nature,  on  which  all  science  rests, 
is  simply  a  postulate  or  axiom  which 
experience  confirms  but  cannot  demon- 
strate. Faith  in  God  we  cannot  prove 
though  it  approves  itself  to  us. 

It  is  true  that  Lincoln  never  joined  any 
of  the  churches.  He  had  mental  reser- 
vations about  their  long  and  complicated 
statements  of  Christian  doctrine.  But  he 
said  to  Congressman  Deming  that,  when 
any  church  would  inscribe  over  its  altar, 
as  the  sole  qualification  for  membership, 
"  the  Saviour's  condensed  statement "  of 
the  substance  of  both  law  and  gospel : 
''  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and 
with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy 
mind ;  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  that 
church  would  he  join  with  all  his  heart 
and  soul. 

But  this  confession  of  faith  brings  me 
back  to  Huxley,  whom  I  have  too  long 
kept  in  the  background.  Once  and,  so  far 
as  I  know,  once  only,  Huxley  gives  us  his 
own  positive  conception  of  religion.  It 
is  in  the  essay  on  "  Genesis  versus  Nature." 
He  first   quotes  the  verse  from   Micah: 


80  SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM 

"And  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of 
thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy, 
and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God"  ;  and 
then  he  adds  this  statement ;  "  If  any  so- 
called  religion  takes  away  from  this  great 
saying  of  Micah,  I  think  it  wantonly  muti- 
lates, while,  if  it  adds  thereto,  I  think  it 
obscures  the  perfect  ideal  of  religion." 

If  this  was  Huxley's  own  religion, — 
and  that  I  take  to  be  the  meaning  of  the 
passage,  —  then,  in  spite  of  all  his  pro- 
fessional and  controversial  Agnosticism, 
Huxley's  personal  faith  would  seem  to 
have  been  not  so  different  from  Lincoln's, 
although  it  was  probably  neither  so  sure 
nor  so  fervent.  This  blending  of  conser- 
vatism in  essential  faith,  quietly  and  per- 
sonally held,  with  radicalism  provoked  by 
disputation  over  unessential  dogmas,  is 
no  unique  phenomenon  in  human  nature. 
Even  Hume,  when  he  was  told  that  he 
had  subverted  the  principles  of  religion, 
replied  that  he  threw  out  his  speculations 
to  entertain  the  learned  and  metaphysical 
world,  yet  he  did  "  not  think  so  differently 
from  the  rest  of  the  world  "  as  people  im- 
agined. It  may  well  be,  therefore,  that 
if  we  go  deep  enough  we  shall  find  that 


SCIENTIFIC  AGNOSTICISM  81 

the  difference  in  faith  between  Huxley, 
the  Agnostic  scientist,  and  Lincoln,  the 
Christian  statesman,  is  not  a  funda- 
mental one.  The  one  has  voiced  his 
creed  in  the  golden  text  of  the  Old 
Testament,  the  other  in  the  golden  text 
of  the  New ;  but  the  substance  of  the 
confession  is  the  same  in  both.  If  this 
faith  be  not  the  Christian  religion,  it 
was  certainly  the  religion  of  Christ.  Yet 
Huxley,  living,  was  the  last  man  in  the 
world  to  force  himself  into  an  unwilling 
communion.  And,  now  that  he  is  gone, 
piety  forbids  us  to  rank  him  with  those 
who  might  disown  him.  Let  us  leave  him, 
therefore,  in  the  pomerium  of  Agnosticism. 
But  If  any  wise  ruler  in  Israel,  if  any 
intelligent  citizen  of  the  Civitas  Dei,  will 
hold  converse  with  him  there  and  learn 
something  of  his  heart  and  life  as  well  as 
of  his  intellect,  he  will,  I  think,  return  to 
us  and  report  in  the  spirit  of  that  pro- 
found epigram  in  which  Carlyle  recorded 
his  first  meeting  with  John  Sterling,  that 
they  did  "  very  well "  together,  "  arguing 
copiously,  but  except  in  opinion  not  disa- 
greeing." 


PART   II 
PHILOSOPHICAL    AGNOSTICISM 

«  For  now  we  see  through  a  glass^  darkly ; 
.  .  .  now  I  know  in  part." 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

^  The  Agnostic  is  one  who  holds  that  he 
has  no  knowledge  of  God,  or,  indeed,  that 
the  human  mind  is  incapable  of  reaching 
a  knowledge  of  God.  Though  this  creed 
is  not  new,  it  has  reached  its  highest 
potency  of  expression  in  modern  times, 
and  the  name  by  which  it  is  designated  is 
of  very  recent  origin.  The  linguistic  mint- 
age we  owe  to  Professor  Huxley.  Bor- 
rowing the  word  "  Agnostic "  from  the 
Greek  designation  of  that  "unknown  "  God 
whose  altar  Paul  saw  at  Athens,  he  in- 
vested the  imported  term  with  a  metaphys- 
ical meaning  to  which  the  original  was 
neutral  and  indifferent,  and  sent  it  forth 
to  proclaim  to  the  modern  world  a  mental 
incompetency  in  regard  to  the  knowing 
of  God,  which  up  to  this  time  had  been 
merely  implied  by  the  more  general  term 
of  scepticism.  The  new  name  was  coined 
in  1869.  That  an  appellation  was  needed 
85 


86  PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

proves  that  the  Agnostic  sect  was  coming 
into  prominence.  The  church  it  would 
supersede  was  an  accomplished  fact  when 
at  Antioch  the  disciples  were  first  called 
Christians. 

The  canonical  writings  of  the  Agnostic 
sect  all  antedate  the  year  of  its  christen- 
ing. We  have  not  space  here  to  examine 
them  or  even  to  enumerate  their  titles. 
But  whether  the  authors  be  rationalistic 
or  empirical  philosophers,  Christian  di- 
vines or  positivist  scientists,  the  burden 
of  their  message  is  always  the  incapacity 
of  the  human  mind  to  know  anything  but 
the  phenomena  of  the  sensible  world,  or 
the  contradictions  in  which  it  is  involved 
when  it  essays  to  reach  Infinite  and  Abso- 
lute Reality.  This  is  the  refrain,  some- 
what monotonous  it  must  be  admitted,  of 
^Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  metaphysics,  varied 
only  by  denunciation  of  those  whose  relig- 
ion consists  in  humble  faith  in  God,  not 
in  confident  assurance  of  His  incogniza- 
bleness.  This  is  the  universal  incanta- 
tion by  which  Dean  Mansel  would  exorcise 
doubt  of  revealed  religion,  as  though  by 
poisoning  the  chalice  of  natural  knowledge 
he  could  commend  to  our  lips  the  divine 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM  87 

wine  of  revelation  !  Both  Mansel  and  Mr. 
Spencer  borrow  the  doctrine  of  nescience 
from  Hamilton,  in  whose  system  it  appears 
as  the  result  of  an  inauspicious  attempt  to 
combine  the  speculations  of  Kant  with 
the  sober,  home-staying  philosophy  of  the 
Scottish  school.  With  Kant  and  Hume 
(who  provoked  Kant  into  becoming  a 
critical  philosopher)  we  reach  the  foun- 
tain-heads of  modern  Agnosticism.  Now 
Kant  and  Hume  also  mark  an  epoch  in 
the  history  of  philosophy,  —  for  the  rea- 
son, as  generally  stated,  that  they  were 
the  first  to  make  knowledge  itself  their 
problem,  instead  of  the  objects  of  knowl- 
edge with  which  their  predecessors  had 
been  exclusively  engaged.  But  this  is 
not  a  complete  explanation  of  the  special 
significance  of  Kant  and  Hume.  Not 
only  was  knowledge  itself  their  theme, 
not  only  did  they  propose  to  discover  by 
analysis  its  nature,  elements,  and  sources, 
but  their  primary  interest  lay  in  determin- 
ing its  limits,  —  in  settling  for  all  time 
what  could  be  known  and  marking  off 
from  it  what  must  forever  remain  unknow- 
able. And  each  working  in  his  own  way, 
—  Kant  with  the  pretentious  apparatus  of 


88  PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

rationalism,  Hume  with  the  simple  instru- 
ments of  empiricism,  —  reached  the  same 
solution  of  the  problem  :  to  wit,  the  know- 
ableness  of  whatever  we  apprehend  by 
means  of  our  senses,  the  unknowableness 
of  any  other  reality.  Both  agree  that  the 
human  mind  is  incapacitated  by  its  very 
constitution  for  the  apprehension  of  God. 
Thus  it  was  not  merely  by  recalling  specu- 
lation from  the  objects  of  knowledge  to 
the  knowing  process  itself,  but  by  concen- 
trating attention  upon  the  limits  of  knowl- 
edge, that  Hume  and  Kant  gave  a  new 
shape  to  philosophy  and  laid  at  the  same 
time  the  foundations  of  modern  Agnosti- 
cism. Hume's  position,  however,  has  so 
much  resemblance  to  the  scepticism  that 
constantly  attended,  and  ultimately  super- 
vened upon,  the  constructive  systems  of 
ancient  philosophy  that  one  might,  with- 
out straining  the  comparison,  fairly  recog- 
nize his  earliest  forerunners  in  Protagoras 
and  Pyrrho  and  ^nesidemus.  These  are 
the  prophets  of  the  old  dispensation  of 
Agnosticism,  as  Hume  and  Kant  are  the 
evangelists  of  the  new,  or  Mr.  Spencer  its 
great  apostle  to  the  Gentiles. 

This  juxtaposition  of  names  will  serve 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM  89 

to  bring  out  a  truth  which  seems  to  be 
little  understood,  but  which  is  of  the  ut- 
most significance,  if  we  are  to  see  Agnos- 
ticism in  its  true  perspective.  It  shows 
that  belief  in  the  incognizableness  of  God 
is  no  accidental  or  belated  phase  of  human 
thought.  Whether  Agnosticism  be  an 
illusion  or  an  insight  of  reason,  it  is  not 
merely  a  casual  or  modern  eclipse  of  faith. 
However  named,  it  has  from  the  very  dawn 
of  reflection  haunted  with  its  shadow  the 
struggling  light  of  "  divine  philosophy." 

Now  a  factor  so  permanent  must  spring 
from  constant  conditions.  If  the  doctrine 
of  the  unknowableness  of  God  appears  and 
reappears  at  every  critical  epoch  in  the 
evolution  of  philosophy,  as  it  certainly 
does,  it  would  seem  to  have  some  nec- 
essary connection  with  the  progress  of 
constructive  thought  itself.  A  careful 
scrutiny  will  show  that  Agnosticism  is  the 
logical  consequence  of  certain  habits  of 
thought,  of  which  the  human  mind  can 
with  difficulty  divest  itself.  Like  every 
creation  of  man,  philosophy  is  character- 
ized by  imperfection.  The  themes  of  phil- 
osophy are  Reality  and  Knowledge.  But 
even  the  best  system  has  fallen  short  of  a 


90  PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

perfect  conception  of  the  Supreme  Being 
and  an  infallible  theory  of  the  origin  and 
nature  of  Knowledge.  Nor  is  this  surpris- 
ing, for  philosophers  are  but  men,  and  they 
bring  to  their  speculative  work  the  views 
and  prejudices  of  the  human  race.  Now, 
partly  in  consequence,  of  his  animal  his- 
tory, partly  as  a  result  of  his  nature,  and 
partly  by  the  necessities  of  existence,  man, 
tested  by  ideal  standards,  is  prone  to  lay 
undue  stress  upon  the  things  of  sense,  so 
that  he  is  ready  to  treat  perceptions  alone 
as  truth  and  material  objects  as  the  sole 
reality.  From  this  immersion  in  sense 
and  matter,  it  has  been  the  divine  mission 
of  philosophy  to  redeem  us.  But  here, 
as  elsewhere,  the  real  proves  refractory  to 
the  ideal ;  and  philosophy  has  not  infre- 
quently succumbed  to  the  error  she  was 
sent  to  overcome.  She  has  too  often  re- 
duced Knowledge  to  sensation,  and  pict- 
ured God  after  the  analogy  of  material 
things  or  mechanical  processes.  Such  a 
knowledge  cannot  reveal  God,  for  neither 
eye  nor  ear  nor  any  other  sense  can  per- 
ceive Him  ;  and  such  a  representation  of 
God  as  an  object  among  other  objects  easily 
discloses   absurdities   and   contradictions. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM  91 

Agnosticism,  therefore,  is  the  corollary  of 
every  sensational  theory  of  Knowledge 
and  every  mechanical  conception  of  God. 

But  Agnosticism  is  also  the  refutation 
of  the  sensational  and  mechanical  philoso- 
phy, or  at  any  rate  its  reductio  ad  ahsurdum. 
The  human  spirit  cannot  on  reflection  be- 
lieve either  that  there  is  no  Divine  Spirit 
or  that  the  Divine  Spirit  does  not  reveal 
Himself  in  the  consciousness  of  man. 
Agnosticism,  therefore,  is  a  challenge  to 
philosophy  to  frame  a  rational  theory  of 
Knowledge  and  a  spiritual  notion  of  God. 
And  as  nothing  interests  man  so  deeply 
as  the  knowledge  of  God,  we  may  claim 
that  Agnosticism  has  been  the  most  potent 
factor  in  the  movement  of  the  human 
spirit  towards  the  true  apprehension  of  its 
Divine  original.  The  Agnostic  himself 
may  not  always  be  conscious  of  the  func- 
tion which  he  discharges  in  the  economy 
of  thought,  and  he  may  even  take  mali- 
cious pleasure  in  the  reflection  that  he  is  a 
stumbling-block  and  a  stone  of  offence  to 
the  theologians.  But  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  the  Agnostic's  demon- 
strations of  nescience  fail  to  produce 
conviction,   and   their   most  general   and 


92  PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

permanent  effect  is  to  prompt  thought 
to  a  consideration,  criticism,  and  correc- 
tion of  the  premises  from  which  such  a 
paradoxical  conclusion  has  been  inferred. 
The  effort  to  paralyze  reason  only  provokes 
reason  to  brace  herself  for  another  flight. 
The  theory  of  nescience  is  but  the  obverse 
of  the  fact  of  science.  The  Agnostic, 
in  laying  down  the  limits  of  Knowledge,  is 
a  champion  of  the  might  of  mind.  That 
he  can  make  such  a  demonstration  is  the 
refutation  of  what  he  demonstrates.  A 
false  prophet  testifying  to  the  truth,  he 
reminds  one  of  the  description  which 
Mephistopheles  gives  of  himself  : 

"  Ein  Theil  von  jener  Kraft, 
Die  stats  das  Bose  will,  und  stats  das  Gute  schafft." 

Let  us  look  at  the  matter  a  little  more 
closely.  Agnosticism  affirms  that  we  can- 
not know  God.  Its  thesis  is  bound  up  in 
the  two  notions,  God  and  Knowledge. 
The  contention  is  that  these  terms  can- 
not be  brought  together.  Now,  if  this 
dogma  be  tenable,  the  reason  must  be 
either  in  the  nature  of  Knowledge,  as 
somehow  inadequate  to  the  apprehension 
of  God,  or  in  the  nature  of  God,  as  some- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM  93 

how  transcending  the  reach  of  Knowl- 
edge. Both  forms  of  proof  have  been 
used  by  the  Agnostic.  The  argument, 
however,  in  either  form  is  far  from  con- 
clusive. Let  us  examine  each  in  turn, 
beginning  with  the  supposed  inability  of 
Knowledge  to  reach  to  God. 

I.  Why  should  Knowledge  be  disquali- 
fied from  reporting  the  Supreme  Reality  ? 
In  the  long  history  of  scepticism,  one,  and 
but  one,  plausible  answer  has  been  given 
to  this  question.  It  has  been  claimed 
that  Knowledge  consists  of  sensations, 
and  that,  as  God  cannot  be  felt  or  seen 
or  heard  or  apprehended  by  any  other 
sense,  the  human  consciousness  is  inac- 
cessible to  intimations,  not  merely  of  His 
nature,  but  even  of  His  existence.  The 
argument  may  be  stated  in  different  ways 
by  sceptics  of  the  ancient  and  of  the 
modern  schools,  but  in  substance  it  has 
changed  little  since  it  was  first  put  for- 
ward by  the  Greek  Sophists,  who  derived 
it  from  the  metaphysics  of  Heracleitus. 
Of  course  God,  as  a  suprasensible  being, 
must  be  declared  unknowable,  if  you  set 
out  with  defining  knowledge  as  a  con- 
geries of  sensations   imprinted   upon  the 


94  PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

mind  by  the  objects  of  the  sensible  world. 
But,  as  Plato  already  demonstrated,  this 
conception  of  Knowledge  is  palpably  false. 
It  labors  under  three  radical  defects, 
which,  although  inseparably  connected 
with  one  another,  it  will  be  well  for  us 
to  contemplate  severally. 

In  the  first  place,  this  theory  treats 
knowing  as  a  kind  of  mechanical  process. 
It  places  the  material  world  on  one  side 
and  mind  as  an  "  empty  chamber  "  on  the 
other;  and  it  pictures  knowing  as  the 
filling  of  the  chamber,  through  the  con- 
duits of  sense,  with  outpourings  from  the 
external  reservoir  of  being.  Or,  to  use 
another  favorite  metaphor,  mind,  accord- 
ing to  this  mechanical  philosophy,  is  a 
waxen  tablet,  and  Knowledge  consists  of 
the  impressions  made  upon  it  by  the  things 
of  sense.  The  bald  statement  of  this  the- 
ory is  perhaps  its  best  refutation.  Yet, 
as  it  is  rooted  in  that  materialism  whicli 
is  implicit  in  the  constitution  of  language 
itself,  we  need  not  wonder  that  popular 
thought  has  always  been  in  bondage  to 
it.  So  long  as  we  must  use  in  describing 
mental  processes  terms  which  wef're  origi- 
nally framed  to  signify  physical/processes, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM  95 

SO  long  shall  we  be  exposed  to  the  danger 
of  conceiving  mind  after  the  analogy  of 
matter.  With  all  his  sense,  circumspec- 
tion, and  insight,  the  father  of  English 
philosophy  did  not  avoid  this  error,  though 
the  third  book  of  the  "Essay  of  Human 
Understanding  "  is  an  impressive  warning 
against  it.  And  what  in  Locke  was  occa- 
sional, and  to  a  certain  extent  overbal- 
anced by  a  contrary  view,  appears  in  the 
latest  scion  of  the  English  school  as  an 
habitual  and  radical  illusion ;  for  though 
we  may  accept  Mr.  Spencer's  personal  dis- 
avowal of  materialism,  no  reader  can  have 
failed  to  observe  that  his  philosophy  of 
mind  is  dominated  by  the  theory  of  the 
"waxen  tablet"  and  the  "empty  cham- 
ber." To  all  such  mechanical  hypotheses 
there  is  one  effective  answer.  The  simple 
fact  is  that  mind  is  not  material  or  like 
anything  material.  It  is  a  spiritual  ac- 
tivity, sui  generis^  of  which  we  are  imme- 
diately conscious  in  all  its  movements,  but 
which  we  can  liken  to  nothing  else  what- 
ever, for  to  it,  as  subject,  the  world  and 
all  that  therein  is  stand  opposed  as  object. 
And  it  is  an  equally  certain  fact  that  the 
act  of  knowing,  whatever  else  it  may  be, 


96  PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

is  no  migration  of  things  into  conscious- 
ness through  the  avenues  of  sensation. 
When  we  see  or  hear  objects,  the  retina 
or  the  tympanum  is,  indeed,  affected  with 
vibrations  of  ether  or  of  air  ;  and  these 
disturbances  are  transmitted  by  appropri- 
ate nerves  to  the  cerebral  tracts  which 
modern  physiology  has  learned  to  locate : 
but  they  do  not  drop  over  this  utmost 
verge  of  the  physical  into  the  mental 
world,  to  which,  indeed,  they  are  not  one 
whit  nearer  at  the  centre  than  they  were 
at  the  periphery  of  the  nervous  organism ; 
and  as  for  a  metamorphosis  of  them  into 
conscious  ideas,  this  is  a  miracle  in  com- 
parison with  which  the  floating  of  iron  or 
the  turning  of  water  into  wine  is  easily 
credible,  —  a  miracle,  too,  for  which  there 
is  no  justification,  as  the  consciousness 
which  it  is  thus  intended  to  produce  is 
given  to  us  as  a  primal  and  ultimate  fact, 
being  that  which  is  nearest  to  us,  that  of 
which  we  are  most  assured,  and  that  by 
means  of  which  we  know  everything  else, 
including  the  cerebral  tremors  from  which 
it  is  sought  to  educe  it.  *'The  mind  is 
its  own  place."  In  knowing  it  is  not  pos- 
sessed by,  but  itself  possesses,  the  objects 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM  97 

it  apprehends.  Knowledge  is  not  the 
product  of  things  ;  it  is  the  creation  of 
the  mind.  Juster  far  than  the  "waxen 
tablet "  account  of  Knowledge  is  Brown- 
ing's description  —  that  passage  of  "  Para- 
celsus "  in  which  poetry  and  philosophy 
coalesce  in  a  climax  of  beauty  and  sug- 
gestiveness : 

"  Truth  is  within  ourselves ;  it  takes  no  rise 
From  outward  things,  whatever  you  may  believe. 
There  is  an  inmost  centre  in  us  all, 
Where  truth  abides  in  fulness ;  and  around, 
Wall  upon  wall,  the  gross  flesh  hems  it  in, 
This  perfect,  clear  perception  —  which  is  truth. 
A  baffling  and  perverting  carnal  mesh 
Binds  it,  and  makes  all  error :  and  to  KNOW 
Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendour  may  escape, 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 
Supposed  to  be  without." 

In  the  second  place,  the  theory  of  Knowl- 
edge on  which  Agnosticism  is  based,  misses 
in  its  analysis  of  the  elements,  of  cognition 
the  most  important  constituent.  It  sees 
in  Knowledge  nothing  but  sensations.  Of 
course  this  doctrine  is  of  a  piece  with  the 
mechanical  conception  of  mind.  If  the 
understanding  be  an  "  empty  chamber,"  if 
the  cognition  of  things  be  the  filling  of 


98  PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

it  with  impressions  from  without,  this 
inflowing  material  of  sensation  must 
make  up  the  entire  content  of  Knowl- 
edge. But  we  have  already  rejected  as 
false  the  mechanical  account  of  mind. 
And  this  sensational  theory  of  Knowl- 
edge is  obnoxious  to  equally  cogent  ob- 
jections. For  when  we  look  closely  at 
the  facts,  we  find  that,  even  if  the  sen- 
sationalist's contention  be  admitted,  only 
the  smallest  part  of  our  Knowledge  would 
be  accounted  for.  It  might  perhaps  ex- 
plain the  qualities  we  attribute  to  sub- 
stances,—  red,  sweet,  heavy,  etc., — but 
what  could  it  mean  by  substances,  or  by 
the  relations  between  them  which  con- 
stitute the  most  important  part,  not  only 
of  ordinary  experience,  but  also  of  sci- 
ence? These  constituents  of  conscious- 
ness are  a  standing  rebuke  to  the 
sensationalist.  There  are  others  of  the 
same  kind,  among  which  the  moral  in- 
tuitions deserve  a  prominent  place. 
Taken  together,  they  prove  that  mind 
is  rational  as  well  as  sentient.  Nay, 
more,  the  sense-element  of  Knowledge 
is  of  less  consequence  than  the  thought- 
element.       Sensations    alone    convey    no 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM  99 

information  to  us  ;  they  are  dumb  and 
blank.  It  is  reason  which,  present  at 
every  point  with  sense,  reads  into  the 
impressions  of  eye  and  ear  and  touch 
notions  that  give  them  meaning  and 
make  them  significant  reports  of  an  ob- 
jective world.  A  purely  sensitive  con- 
sciousness could  know  nothing;  it  could 
not  even  apprehend  its  sensations ;  for 
apprehension  is  impossible  without  cate- 
gories of  thought  to  discriminate  and 
classify.  If  Knowledge  were  made  up 
of  sensations  merely,  it  would  cease  to 
be  Knowledge.  Thus  sensationalism,  if 
logically  carried  out,  not  only  leads  to 
religious  scepticism  but  to  universal  nes- 
cience. It  is  the  lion's  cave,  from  which 
there  are  no  tracks  outwards.  It  may 
seem  strange  that  the  Agnostic  scientist 
should  rest  in  a  theory  which  is  not 
more  fatal  to  theology  than  to  science  ; 
but  this  only  shows  in  what  a  lack  of 
rigorous  thinking  his  religious  creed  was 
engendered  and  what  immunity  from 
criticism  any  fashionable  cult  enjoys. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  an  exhaustive  analy- 
sis of  cognition  will  disclose  reason  as 
its   vital   principle.     And    to   a    rational 


100         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

intelligence  the  existence  of  God  is 
neither  less  nor  more  knowable  than  the 
existence  of  the  Self  or  of  the  World. 
The  truth  that  mind  is  rational  as  well 
as  sentient,  is  fatal  to  the  main  sup- 
port of  Agnosticism,  —  the  easy  argument 
drawn  from  the  dogma  that  Knowledge 
is  of  sensations  only.  And  with  the  dis- 
appearance of  sensationalism,  which  is 
fast  yielding  to  a  juster  conception  of 
what  Knowledge  really  is,  the  Agnostic 
wiseacres  who  have  terrified  the  faint- 
hearted amongst  us  by  pretentiously 
delimiting  and  circumscribing  human 
knowledge,  will  find  themselves  without 
a  vocation.  No  other  generation,  it  is 
safe  to  predict,  will  see  the  farce  of  nes- 
cienee  playing  at  omniscience  in  setting 
the  hounds  of  science.  Scepticism  may, 
indeed,  survive  and  manifest  itself  at 
every  forward  step  in  the  intellectual 
development  of  individuals  and  com- 
munities ;  for  deeper  doubt  is  the  first 
effect  of  larger  knowledge  ;  but  with 
the  demise  of  sensationalism,  this  psycho- 
logical shadow,  though  it  continue  to  be 
called  Agnosticism,  will  never  again  take 
itself   for  the   light  of  ultimate  truth  or 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        101 

pretend  that  it  can  pierce  even  to  the 
dividing  of  the  knowable  from  the  un- 
knowable universe. 

It  has  now  been  shown,  first,  that  the 
Agnostic  misrepresents  the  subject  of 
Knowledge,  and,  secondly,  that  he  mis- 
reports  the  elements  of  Knowledge.  The 
third  criticism  to  be  made  upon  him  is 
that  he  misunderstands  the  meaning  ,of 
Knowledge.  Even  if  the  mind  were  an 
empty  chamber,  and  in  knowing  it  were 
filled  with  sensational  material,  the  im- 
port of  Knowledge  —  that  which  it  sig- 
nifies—  would  be  something  other  than 
this  process  of  furnishing.  Now  the  Ag- 
nostic fails  to  discern  what  it  is  whereof 
consciousness  gives  us  information.  He 
blunders  in  reading  the  communication, 
and  he  confounds  the  parties  whom  it 
concerns.  Sensationalism  has  so  per- 
verted his  vision  that  he  no  longer  sees 
realities,  but  images  or  even  after-images. 
He  will  have  it  that  in  knowing  we  are 
cognizant  merely  of  mental  states,  whereas 
what  we  know  is  always  some  Reality,  and 
it  is  only  by  subsequent  reflection  and 
analysis  we  discover  that  sensational  or 
ideational    states   were    in    any  way  in- 


102         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

volved  in  the  cognition  of  that  reality. 
The  Agnostic  tells  us  we  cannot  know 
God  because  states  of  consciousness  testify 
to  nothing  beyond  themselves.  But  the 
fact  is  that  Knowledge  is  a  report  of 
Reality  ;  and  if  this  fact  be  incompatible 
with  the  supposition  of  states  of  conscious- 
ness as  constitutive  of  Knowledge,  that 
supposition  had  better  be  dismissed  to 
the  arsenal  of  physical  imagery  from 
which  it  has  been  derived.  That  intelli- 
gence should  make  us  aware  of  existence, 
and  not  merely  of  its  own  states,  is  no 
more  surprising  than  that  anything  should 
be  what  it  actually  is.  How  it  comes  that 
we  are  cognizant  of  Reality,  is  a  question 
neither  more  nor  less  difficult  than  this 
other,  which  is  really  its  equivalent, 
namely,  How  comes  it  that  we  are  in- 
telligent beings  ?  That  we  are  intelli- 
gent beings,  is  at  any  rate  a  fact ;  and  it 
is  just  the  nature  of  intelligence  to  have 
converse  with  existence.  This  is  no  the- 
ory about  Knowledge,  bat  simply  a  state- 
ment of  what  it  is.  And  the  statement 
is  so  self-evident  that  it  would  never  have 
been  questioned  —  indeed,  it  would  not 
have  been  necessary  explicitly  to  make  it 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        103 

—  but  for  mechanical  theories  alike  of  the 
knower,  of  knowing,  and  of  Knowledge. 
Now  just  as  the  knower  is  not  a  waxen 
tablet,  but  a  self-conscious  spirit ;  and  as 
knowing  is  not  the  receiving  of  impres- 
sions from  without,  but  creative  activity 
at  home  ;  so  Knowledge  is  not  an  aggre- 
gate of  miscellaneous  materials  in  a  store- 
house called  mind,  but  it  is  the  unfolding 
of  a  living  intelligence  which,  while  open 
to  all  the  influences  of  earth  and  sky,  re- 
mains identical  with  itself,  and  so  trans- 
forms or  transubstantiates  what  it  takes 
up  from  the  environment  as  to  make  each 
addition  the  expression  of  its  own  life,  — 
a  life  which  at  every  stage  of  this  process 
of  differentiation  and  integration  attains 
not  only  to  a  fuller  revelation  but  to  a 
more  perfect  realization  of  its  own  in- 
most being. 

In  the  long  course  of  this  development, 
the  essential  principles  of  intelligence — the 
vital  stuff  of  which  Knowledge  is  compact 

—  have  clearly  delineated  themselves,  al- 
though they  are  not  obscure  even  in  the 
crude  thought  of  primitive  mankind.  At 
first,  however,  they  are  rather  presupposed 
than  explicitly  conceived  or  expressly  de- 


104         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

scribed.  But  in  the  dawning,  as  in  the 
full-orbed,  intelligence  there  are  present 
three  ideas,  which  not  only  fix  its  circuit 
but  constitute  also  its  real  essence.  They 
are  the  consciousness  of  the  world,  the  con- 
sciousness of  self,  and  the  consciousness 
of  God.  These  three  realities  are  the  soul 
of  Knowledge,  at  once  its  essential  sub- 
stance and  its  ultimate  goal.  Its  sub- 
stance, for  Knowledge  at  every  stage, 
from  that  of  the  savage  to  that  of  the 
scientist,  is  an  effort  to  realize  more 
clearly  what  we  mean  by  nature,  by  man, 
and  by  God  ;  and  its  goal,  for  the  pro- 
gressive movement  of  Knowledge  always 
returns  upon  its  starting-points,  only  with 
a  more  exhaustive  consciousness  of  the 
subject  and  the  object,  and  of  God  as  the 
focal  source  of  their  opposition  and  their 
union.  Of  course  it  is  not  meant  that 
these  three  elements  of  intelligence  are 
all  equally  conspicuous  at  every  stage  of 
its  evolution,  whether  in  individuals  or 
in  communities.  On  the  contrary,  there 
is  first  that  which  is  natural  and  after- 
wards that  which  is  spiritual ;  first  the 
consciousness  of  objects,  and  afterwards 
self-consciousness   and   the   consciousness 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        105 

of  God.  Not,  however,  that  any  intelli- 
gence is  merely  percipient  of  the  external 
world;  the  meaning  is  simply  that  at  first 
the  objective  consciousness  predominates 
over  the  other  forms  of  consciousness 
which,  nevertheless,  are  vaguely  present 
even  from  the  beginning.  The  mental 
eye  looks  outward  upon  nature  before 
it  looks  inward  upon  itself  or  upward  to 
the  common  source  both  of  vision  and  the 
visible  —  of  intelligence  and  the  intel- 
ligible world.  But  though  the  idea  of 
God  is  that  element  of  intelligence  which 
is  latest  to  develop  into  clear  conscious- 
ness, —  and  which  must  be  latest,  for  it  is 
the  unity  of  the  difference  of  the  self  and 
the  not-self,  which  are,  therefore,  presup- 
posed, —  it  has  not  less  validity  in  itself, 
it  gives  no  less  trustworthy  assurance  of 
actuality,  than  the  consciousness  of  the 
self  or  the  consciousness  of  the  not-self. 
This  is  a  point  which  philosophy  has  per- 
haps not  sufficiently  emphasized.  At  any 
rate,  it  is  a  point  which  the  Agnostic  fails 
to  appreciate.  For  if  it  is  conceded  that 
there  is  an  objective  world  of  which 
something  is  known,  and  a  subjective 
spirit  of   whom   something   is   known,  it 


106         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

cannot  be  that  we  are  ignorant  of  God 
or  in  doubt  of  His  existence.  Like  the 
self  and  the  world,  God  is  given  to  us  as 
the  presupposition  of  intelligence ;  and 
so  long  as  this  evidence  accredits  them  it 
cannot  discredit  Him.  It  might  of  course 
be  said  that  Ave  know  no  realities  at  all  — 
neither  finite  nor  infinite  ;  but  this  view 
is  repugnant  to  common  sense,  it  rests  on 
a  false  ideal  of  Knowledge,  and  in  prac- 
tice it  is  impossible  to  carry  out.  Knowl- 
edge cannot  relax  its  hold  on  Reality,  for 
Reality  is  the  substance  of  its  story.  And 
the  point  here  emphasized  is  that  our 
knowledge  of  God  is  the  same  in  kind 
as  our  knowledge  of  the  external  world 
or  of  ourselves. 

If  it  should  be  urged  that,  in  the  history 
of  scepticism,  the  divine  existence  has  often 
been  put  in  doubt,  one  might  retort  that 
the  self  and  the  world  have  fared  no  bet- 
ter at  the  hands  of  materialists  and  subjec- 
tive idealists.  These  historical  instances 
remind  us  of  the  danger  of  operating  with 
one-sided  abstractions  and  turning  them 
against  each  other.  In  the  face  of  such 
arbitrary  partisanship  for  either  the  sub- 
ject or  the  object,  or  for  either  the  finite 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        107 

or  the  infinite,  the  fact  needs  to  be  stated 
that  as  intelligence  is  conversant  with  nat- 
ure, and  self,  and  God,  so  it  knows  them, 
not  in  isolation  from  one  another,  but  only 
in  their  mutual  relation  and  implication. 
We  are  not  conscious  of  ourselves  in  sep- 
aration from  the  objective  world :  on  the 
contrary,  the  latter  nourishes  our  subjec- 
tive life  of  feeling  and  of  cognition  while, 
in  volition,  we  react  against  it.  Neither 
do  we  know  the  object  divorced  from  the 
subject :  it  is  we  who  perceive  it ;  ours  are 
the  sensations  which  give  content  to  the 
perception,  ours  the  thoughts  which  con- 
strue it  into  an  object  possessing  definite 
qualities  of  its  own  and  having  definite 
relations  to  other  objects  in  the  expanse 
of  an  all-embracing  space  and  the  se- 
quence of  an  ever-during  time.  And  as 
subject  and  object  mutually  imply  each 
other,  so,  if  Knowledge  is  to  be  complete, 
they  presuppose  a  principle  of  unity  as 
ground  of  their  connection  and  reconcilia- 
tion of  their  opposition.  Only  on  rising 
to  this  unity,  only  when  we  "see  all  things 
in  God,"  can  we  see  things  as  they  truly 
are.  The  consciousness  of  God  is  the  log- 
ical prius  of  the  consciousness  of  self  and 


108         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

of  the  world.  But  not,  as  already  ob- 
served, the  chronological;  for,  according 
to  the  profound  observation  of  Aristotle, 
what  in  the  nature  of  things  is  first,  is  in 
the  order  of  development  last.  Just  be- 
cause God  is  the  first  principle  of  being 
and  knowing,  is  He  the  last  to  be  mani- 
fested and  known.  If  this  sound  para- 
doxical, it  may  be  asked  whether  all 
experience  does  not  show  that  what  is 
nearest  to  us  is  the  last  thing  to  be 
known;  and  whether,  therefore,  a  princi- 
ple which  is  one  with  the  very  existence 
of  intelligence  should  not  be  the  latest  to 
come  into  distinct  consciousness  and  to 
gain  verification  and  demonstration.  Yet, 
from  the  beginning,  human  thought  has 
been  haunted  by  the  presence  of  God. 
And  beneath  all  the  crude  pictures  through 
which  the  fancy  and  imagination  of  all 
peoples  have  endeavored  to  represent  Him, 
we  may  discern  the  never-failing  concep- 
tion of  God  as  the  ultimate  unity,  who,  in 
some  way  or  other,  takes  up  into  Himself 
the  differences  of  the  objective  and  the 
subjective  world.  But,  as  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  self  and  the  not-self  thus  per- 
fects itself  in  the  consciousness  of   God, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        109 

SO  our  consciousness  of  God,  which  is  no 
otiose  and  transcendent  abstraction,  real- 
izes itself  in  all  our  Knowledge  of  the 
world  and  of  ourselves.  It  is  not  more 
certain  that  the  finite  implies  the  infinite 
than  that  the  infinite  moves  and  has  its 
being  in  the  finite.  In  the  strictest  sense, 
therefore,  nature  and  man  are  the  revela- 
tion of  God.  These  two  volumes  may  be 
compared  with  the  Old  and  the  New  Tes- 
tament. In  both  cases  it  is  the  later  rev- 
elation which  is  the  clearer.  Man,  as  the 
highest  point  to  which  evolution  has  at- 
tained, best  expresses  the  meaning  and 
drift  of  the  process  and  most  clearly  re- 
veals the  nature  of  the  spirit  which  under- 
lies it.  Still  the  God  who  reveals  Himself 
in  man,  especially  in  the  moral  and  spirit- 
ual life  of  man,  also  reveals  Himself  in 
nature.  All  our  Knowledge,  therefore, 
of  the  finite  is  at  the  same  time  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  infinite.  It  would  be  passing 
strange,  if  the  light  wherewith  science  is 
flooding  the  world  and  human  life  served 
simply  to  disclose  our  ignorance  of  God, 
of  whom  the  world  and  human  life  are 
the  express  revelation.  This  illumination 
is  surely  not  intended  to  smite  reason  to 


110         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

the  earth  or  to  light  her  "the  way  to 
dusky  death."  And  she  will  escape  from 
the  confusion  into  which  Agnosticism 
would  bring  her  by  the  recognition  that 
the  spirit  that  fills  "all  thinking  things, 
all  objects  of  all  thought,"  is  known  to  us 
through  our  observations  of  nature  and 
the  experience  of  human  history,  but 
most  of  all  in  the  stirrings  of  our  own 
spirit,  which  wise  men  of  old  declared  to 
be  in  the  image  of  God. 

From  all  that  has  been  said,  it  would 
seem  to  follow  beyond  peradventure  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  Knowl- 
edge to  warrant  the  dogma  of  religious 
nescience.  On  the  contrary,  since  Knowl- 
edge is  of  Reality,  and  since  the  Infinite 
Reality  is  known  in  the  same  way  and 
with  the  same  evidence  of  assurance  as 
the  finite  realities  of  the  subjective  and 
objective  consciousness  (which  also  pre- 
suppose the  Infinite  Being  as  the  ground 
of  their  union  and  reconciliation),  it  is 
clear  that,  unless  in  a  mood  of  finical  but 
absurd  scepticism,  we  are  prepared  to  dis- 
charge all  knowledge  as  illusory,  we  can- 
not impeach  our  knowledge  of  God  or 
refuse  to  accept  it  as  trustworthy.     Ag- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        111 

nosticism,  so  far  as  it  rests  on  the  sup- 
posed limits  of  our  cognitive  faculties,  is 
in  reality  an  utterly  baseless  dogma. 

II.  But  the  Agnostic,  as  was  remarked 
at  the  outset,  has  another  argument.  He 
finds  in  the  very  nature  of  God  evidence 
of  His  incognizableness.  This  argument 
is  not  so  different  from  the  preceding  as 
might  at  first  appear.  Both  presuppose 
an  impassable  chasm  between  human  in- 
telligence and  Divine  Reality.  But  the 
argument  which  has  been  already  so  fully 
traversed,  imputes  the  estoppel  of  commu- 
nication to  a  fundamental  incapacity  of 
the  human  mind.  The  argument  which 
is  now  to  be  considered,  explains  the 
breach  by  the  essential  inhospitableness, 
inaccessibility,  or  incommunicableness  of 
God.  The  pith  of  the  one  argument  is 
this,  that  Knowledge  by  its  very  nature 
must  fall  short  of  God.  The  pith  of  the 
other  argument  is  this,  that  God  by  His 
very  nature  must  transcend  Knowledge. 
The  eternal  divorce  of  the  Divine  Being 
and  human  intelligence  is  the  burden  of 
both ;  only,  in  one  case  the  ground  is  dis- 
covered in  a  Divine  excess,  and  in  the 
other  in  a  human  defect.     But  the  note- 


J 12         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

worthy  thing  is  that  the  incompatibility 
of  this  pair  arises  not  from  a  fault  in  each 
separately  or  in  either  alone,  but  from 
a  fault  which  is  due  merely  to  their  con- 
junction ;  for  that  excess  of  being  would 
not  be  an  excess  but  for  this  defect  of 
knowing,  and  this  defect  of  knowing 
would  not  be  a  defect  but  for  that  excess 
of  being.  Consequently,  in  reasoning 
from  the  transcendency  of  God,  the  Ag- 
nostic is  using  the  same  argument  as 
when  he  reasoned  from  the  limitation  of 
Knowledge,  only  he  is  looking  at  the  mat- 
ter from  a  different  point  of  view  —  from 
the  point  of  view  of  that  which  is  known 
(or  rather  not  known)  instead  of  that 
which  knows.  This  being  so,  it  will  be 
possible  to  dispose  of  the  second  defence 
of  Agnosticism  in  much  less  space  than  it 
has  been  necessary  to  give  to  the  first. 

There  is  one  general  observation,  how- 
ever, suggested  by  this  argument  for 
Agnosticism,  which  it  will  be  well  to 
make  in  limine.  As  everybody  knows, 
the  Agnostic  commends  himself  to  men 
by  an  air  of  meekness  and  humility.  His 
disclaimer  of  a  much  valued  knowledge 
which  others  claim  to  possess,  sounds  like 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        113 

the  voice  of  lowly  honesty  and  intellectual 
modesty  in  a  noisy  world  of  self-assertive 
sham  and  pretence;  and  even  when  he 
assumes  the  prerogative  of  rebuke  and 
denounces  those  who  will  not  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  religious  nescience,  this 
reputation  for  humility  is  apt  to  palliate, 
if  it  does  not  altogether  condone,  the  as- 
perity of  his  chiding,  while  it  may  even 
surround  him  with  the  halo  of  a  great 
teacher  of  truth  unpalatable  to  a  generation 
of  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  Now  when  the 
Agnostic  comes  before  us  no  longer  either 
as  a  stern  reproving  prophet  or  as  a  good- 
natured,  ironical  fellow  with  a  humor  for 
negations,  but  in  the  guise  simply  of  a 
metaphysician  who  is  to  give  a  reason  for 
the  faith  that  is  in  him,  he  cannot  of  course 
claim  immunity  from  any  legitimate  criti- 
cism to  which  those  expose  themselves 
who  enter  into  this  dialectical  arena. 
And  surely  no  other  dogmatist  ever  laid 
himself  open  to  a  juster  charge  of  defying 
his  own  principles.  Something  has  al- 
ready been  said  of  the  astounding  specta- 
cle of  Agnosticism  simulating  Gnosticism 
in  order  to  fix  the  limits  of  human  Knowl- 
edge.    But   what   shall  we  say  when   it 


114         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

goes  on  to  set  limits  to  the  nature  of  God 
Himself?  Yet  this  is  precisely  what  is 
done  whenever  it  is  asserted  that  God  is 
so  constituted  that  He  cannot  reveal  Him- 
self to  the  thought  of  man.  How  is  this 
divine  impotency  known  to  the  Agnostic 
who  knows  nothing  but  the  phenomena  of 
our  sensible  experience  ?  If  God  is  abso- 
lutely inscrutable,  how  can  you  say  He 
must  be  of  such  a  nature  that  He  cannot 
make  a  disclosure  of  Himself  or  communi- 
cate with  His  creatures  ?  Surely,  in  this 
proclamation  of  the  Divine  dumbness,  the 
Agnostic  touches  at  once  the  climax  of 
logical  inconsistency  and  the  height  of 
intellectual  presumption. 

But  what  ground  is  there  in  reality  for 
supposing  that  the  Divine  Being  tran- 
scends the  reach  and  compass  of  human 
intelligence  ?  In  the  theory  elaborated 
by  Hamilton  and  Mansel  and  adopted  by 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  this  ontological 
argument  for  religious  nescience,  though 
buttressed  by  minor  considerations,  rests 
for  its  ultimate  foundation  upon  two 
premises  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  isolate 
from  the  superstructure  and  its  adjacent 
supports.     One  of  these  premises  asserts 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        115 

that  God  is  Infinite  and  Absolute  ;  the 
other  asserts  that  man  knows  nothing 
but  the  finite  and  the  relative.  The  lat- 
ter proposition  we  have  already  canvassed 
in  another  connection.  It  is  derived  from 
a  false  theory  of  Knowledge,  and  flies  in 
the  face  of  our  actual  experience.  It  has 
been  shown  already  that  the  finite  and 
the  infinite  are  known  together,  and  that 
it  is  as  impossible  to  know  one  without 
the  other  as  it  is  to  apprehend  an  angle 
apart  from  the  sides  which  contain  it. 
This  is  the  truth  in  the  much  misunder- 
stood doctrine  of  the  Relativity  of  Knowl- 
edge. But,  not  to  repeat  or  expand  what 
has  already  been  said  upon  this  subject,  it 
must  here  be  asserted  once  for  all  that 
intelligence  is  not,  and  by  its  very  nature 
cannot  be,  restricted  to  the  finite  and  the 
relative  in  any  sense  which  excludes  from 
its  purview  the  Infinite  and  the  Absolute. 
These  provincial  limitations  are  altogether 
artificial  and  arbitrary.  And  with  their 
disappearance  the  sphere  of  Universal 
Being  stands  revealed  as  the  proper  coun- 
terpart for  the  boundless  scope  and  em- 
brace of  Knowledge.  And  when  this 
point  is  reached  —  and  it  must  be  reached 


116         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

by  all  thinkers  who  accept  any  knowledge 
of  reality  as  trustworthy  —  no  difficulty 
will  be  created  by  that  other  proposition 
which  predicates  "Infinite"  and  "Abso- 
lute "  of  God.  For  the  Infinite  and  Abso- 
lute is  not  that  which  excludes  or  negates 
the  finite  and  the  relative,  it  is  that  which 
takes  them  up  into  itself  and  in  whose 
embrace  they  find  their  truest  being  ;  as, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  realizes  itself  through 
them  and  would  be  unknown  without 
them.  This  organic  and  evolutionary 
view  at  once  of  Being  and  of  Thought 
is  the  true  corrective  of  that  ontological 
Agnosticism  which  derives  itself  from  the 
conception  of  God  as  Infinite  and  Abso- 
lute. If  it  is  the  nature  of  the  Infinite 
and  Absolute  Being  to  reveal  and  realize 
Himself  in  the  finite  and  relative,  and  if 
it  is  the  nature  of  intelligence  to  appre- 
hend these  realities,  not  separately  but 
together,  how,  from  such  a  perfect  onto- 
logical and  psychological  arrangement 
for  the  meeting  of  the  Divine  Being  and 
the  human  mind,  can  it  be  inferred  that 
they  must  remain  eternally  apart  ?  Man- 
ifestly the  thinkers  who  drew  this  conclu- 
sion did  not  so  conceive  either  of  God  or  of 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        117 

human  intelligence.  Restricting  the  lat- 
ter to  the  finite  phenomena  of  space  and 
time,  —  unwarrantably,  as  we  have  already 
seen, — they  set  up  over  against  these 
phenomena  the  image  of  a  reality  which 
was  not  only  to  transcend  them,  but  which, 
as  infinite,  was  to  be  merely  the  negative 
of  the  finite,  and  which  as  absolute  was  to 
stand  out  of  all  relation  to  it.  Such  a 
metaphysical  idol  we  can  never  of  course 
know,  for  it  is  cunningly  devised  after 
the  pattern  of  what  Knowledge  is  not. 
Precisely  because  we  are  intelligent  beings 
must  we  be  ignorant  of  this  nonentity. 
If  it  were  real,  and  therefore  in  relation 
to  other  reality,  we  should  have  no  trouble 
in  knowing  it,  —  were  it  not  that  the 
Agnostic  objects,  forsooth,  to  knowing 
by  means  of  our  intelligence  because  it 
is  a  relating  intelligence,  as  though  seeing 
should  be  forbidden  to  the  eyes  and  en- 
joined upon  the  hands  or  ears.  To  know, 
to  think,  to  comprehend  is  to  compare  and 
discriminate  —  to  set  one  thing  against 
another  and  to  note  their  differences  and 
resemblances.  It  is  in  this  way  that 
intelligence  has  come  into  possession  of 
the  intelligible  world  —  finite  and  infinite 


118         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

alike.  Identity  and  difference  are  the 
poles  about  which  all  knowledge  revolves. 
Comparing  is  the  essence  of  the  cognitive 
function.  We  know  man  in  relation  to 
nature  and  nature  in  relation  to  man,  and 
we  never  know  either  truly  till  we  know 
both  in  relation  to  God.  But  the  Agnos- 
tic sets  up  the  invisible  picture  of  a  Grand 
Mre,  formless  and  colorless  in  itself,  ab- 
solutely separated  from  man  and  from 
the  world  —  blank  within  and  void  with- 
out, —  its  very  existence  indistinguishable 
from  its  non-existence,  —  and  bowing 
down  before  this  idolatrous  creation,  he 
pours  out  his  soul  in  lamentations  over 
the  incognizableness  of  such  a  mysterious 
and  awful  nonentity  !  The  truth  is  that 
the  Agnostic's  abstraction  of  a  deity  is 
unknown  only  because  it  is  unreal.  And 
his  argument  has  no  bearing  upon  our 
knowledge  of  God.  The  Divine  Being, 
whose  vesture  is  nature  and  whose  image 
man  ;  the  Ever-active  Creator,  in  whom  we 
and  all  things  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being ;  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  nourishes 
the  world  and  communes  with  the  chil- 
dren of  men  :  this  Living  God  is  known 
precisely  because  He  does  come  into  re- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        119 

lation  with  His  creatures ;  nor  is  He 
recognized  by  the  intellect  alone  —  the 
heart  owns  Him  with  pious  and  reverent 
affection,  the  will  bows  before  His  right- 
eous law,  and  our  whole  soul,  yearning 
as  it  does  for  the  Father  of  Spirits,  is 
quickened  and  refreshed  by  His  presence. 
This  symphony  of  response  from  all  sides 
of  our  nature  confirms  reason's  assurance 
that  God  is  not  concealed  from  mortal 
ken  ;  that  though  the  infinite  depths  of 
His  being  are  beyond  our  present  vision, 
we  yet  see  "  through  a  glass  darkly  "  and, 
while  not  omniscient,  really  "  know  in 
part."  Partial  as  it  is,  it  is  this  vision  of 
the  Divine  which  transfigures  the  life  of 
man  on  earth. 

Agnosticism  is  only  a  transitional  and 
temporary  phase  of  thought.  The  human 
mind  can  no  more  surrender  its  belief  in 
God  than  its  belief  in  a  world  or  in  a  self. 
Contemporary  Agnosticism,  strange  as  it 
may  sound,  is  in  part  due  to  the  great 
advance  which  Knowledge  has  made  dur- 
ing the  last  half  century  ;  it  is  blindness 
from  excess  of  light.  The  astonishing 
results    of    scientific    investigation    have 


120         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

given  us  new  insight  into  the  physical 
universe  and  the  life  of  mankind ;  and 
though,  in  consequence  of  the  immanency 
of  the  Infinite  in  the  finite,  every  enlarge- 
ment and  rectification  of  our  view  of  man 
and  nature  must  also  involve  growth  in 
our  knowledge  of  God,  the  first  effect  of 
this  advance  has  been  merely  a  revolt 
against  the  partial  and  inadequate  repre- 
sentations of  God  which  popular  thought 
has  inherited  from  the  ages  that  antedate 
the  birth  of  modern  science.  But  the 
Agnostic  fever  seems  already  to  be  burn- 
ing out.  And  as  reason  cannot  escape 
from  its  three  fundamental  ideas  —  nature, 
self,  God — and  the  development  of  rea- 
son consists  in  enriching  the  content  of 
each  and  adjusting  them  harmoniously  to 
one  another,  it  cannot  be  doubted  —  and 
the  history  of  human  thought  confirms 
the  expectation — that  reason's  next  step 
will  be  to  modify  or  reinterpret  the  idea 
of  God  so  as  to  inform  and  harmonize  it 
with  the  revelation  which  science  has  de- 
ciphered in  the  operations  of  nature  and 
the  life  of  humanity.  Nay,  has  not  rea- 
son already  to  some  extent  accomplished 
her   task?      Does   not   the   light  already 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        121 

shine  for  all  who  have  eyes  to  see  ?  The 
conception  of  God  as  spiritual  and  not 
mechanical ;  as  immanent  not  external ; 
as  working  by  law  not  by  caprice,  and 
with  steady  infinite  patience  not  by  ca- 
tastrophic outbursts ;  as  adumbrated  in 
nature  and  revealed  in  the  moral  and 
spiritual  qualities  of  man,  who  is  the  goal 
of  evolution  and  the  epitome  and  abridg- 
ment of  existence  :  is  not  this  conception, 
in  combination  with  the  idea  of  the  Divine 
Fatherhood  (which  is  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity), taking  possession  of  the  best 
spirits  in  the  modern  world  and  dislodg- 
ing the  Agnosticism  by  which  it  was  pre- 
ceded and  by  which,  in  a  sense,  it  was 
originated?  Even  the  greatest  of  living 
Agnostics, — Mr.  Herbert  Spencer, — while 
still  strenuously  denying  that  we  know 
anything  about  God,  yet  advances  so  far 
as  to  posit  the  existence  of  God  as  indis- 
pensable first  principle  both  of  knowing 
and  of  being. 

But  apart  from  the  peculiar  perplexity 
into  which  our  age  has  been  brought  by 
the  attempt  to  assimilate  such  an  unpar- 
alleled mass  of  new  knowledge,  both  of 
ourselves  and  of  the  world,  Agnosticism 


122         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

now,  as  in  the  past,  has  been  provoked  by, 
and  is  a  reaction  from,  the  excessive  dog- 
matism of  metaphysical  theology.  Indeed, 
many  half-educated  persons  call  them- 
selves Agnostics  merely  to  indicate  that 
they  do  not  believe  the  thirty-nine  arti- 
cles or  some  other  churchly  creed.  The 
shepherds  of  the  flock,  judged  by  the  arti- 
cles of  faith,  make  such  claims  to  omnis- 
cience that  the  silly  sheep,  in  sheer  recoil, 
delight  to  browse  on  nescience.  The 
theologians  have  sown  the  wind  of 
Gnosticism,  and  they  are  reaping  the 
whirlwind  of  Agnosticism.  The  harvest 
will  compel  them  —  it  is  now  coanpelling 
them — to  reconsider  what  and  how  they 
sow.  And  the  analysis  already  made  by 
the  late  Dr.  Hatch  in  his  ''Hibbert  Lect- 
ures" awakens  the  hope  that  Christian 
theology,  having  at  last  become  conscious 
of  its  origin  and  nature,  will  slough  off 
what  this  learned  writer  designates  its 
damnosa  hereditas:  its  affectation  of  in- 
fallible metaphysics  ;  its  supposition  that 
the  Christian  revelation,  which  is  the  set- 
ting forth  of  certain  facts,  authenticates 
and  guarantees  speculations  which  are 
built  upon  those  facts.     The  speculative 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        123 

habit  was  foreign  to  primitive  Christian- 
ity. It  is  the  invincible  residuum  with 
which  the  Greek  world,  though  van- 
quished, endowed  the  victorious  Christian 
church.  The  tendency  to  uncontrolled 
speculation  had  been  inwrought  into  the 
intellectual  fibre  of  the  time  through  the 
pervasive  influence  of  Greek  ideas;  and 
Christianity  could,  of  course,  be  received 
only  through  this  medium  of  apprehen- 
sion. The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  pro- 
claimed a  new  law  of  life  ;  it  assumed 
religious  and  ethical  conceptions  without 
attempting  to  justify  or  even  to  formu- 
late them;  it  contained  no  articles  of 
faith ;  it  knew  nothing  of  metaphysics  or 
speculative  theology.  From  this  simple 
starting-point,  as  Dr.  Hatch  shows,  the 
speculative  habit  which  the  Greeks  had 
ingrained  in  the  mind  of  the  world  engen- 
dered the  abstract  and  dogmatic  meta- 
physics of  the  Nicene  Creed.  To  a  unity 
of  belief  in  the  fundamental  facts  of  Chris- 
tianity, which  was  insisted  upon  from  the 
first,  succeeded  the  demand  for  a  unifor- 
mity of  speculations  in  regard  to  those 
facts.  "The  holding  of  approved  opin- 
ions was  elevated  to  a  position  at   first 


124         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

co-ordinate  with,  and  at  last  superior  to, 
trust  in  God  and  the  effort  to  live  a  holy 
life."  This  is  the  bequest  of  Greece  to 
Christian  thought  which  Dr.  Hatch  char- 
acterizes as  the  damnosa  hereditas.  "It 
has,"  he  says,  "given  to  later  Christian- 
ity that  part  of  it  which  is  doomed  to 
perish,  and  which  yet,  while  it  lives, 
holds  the  key  of  the  prison-house  of  many 
souls."  1  It  is  that  part  also,  we  must  add, 
which  has  been  most  prolific  of  Agnosti- 
cism. The  claim  of  the  church  to  pos- 
session of  an  infallible  knowledge  has 
involved  it  in  warfare  with  natural  sci- 
ence and  with  historical  scholarship.  And 
so  far  as  Agnosticism  represents  not  reli- 
gious nescience,  but  freedom  of  thought 
and  inquiry,  it  has  deservedly  triumphed 
at  every  point.  The  church  is  learning 
to  leave  to  science  and  scholarship  the 
things  that  are  theirs.  But  it  needs,  if 
Agnosticism  is  to  be  completely  disarmed, 

1  The  Hihhert  Lectures,  1888.  The  Influence  of 
Greek  Ideas  upon  tlie  Christian  Church.  By  the  late 
Edwin  Hatch,  D.D.,  Reader  in  Ecclesiastical  History 
in  the  University  of  Oxford.  —  The  quotations  are 
from  Lecture  V,  on  which  other  historical  statements 
of  this  paragraph  are  also  based. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        125 

to  learn  one  other  lesson:  namely,  that 
as  the  religious  life  is  vastly  more  impor- 
tant than  the  intellectual  apprehension  of 
its  nature  or  conditions,  so  no  interest  of 
religion  demands  that  we  shall  define  pre- 
cisely or  circumscribe  with  a  fence  of 
words  the  Infinite  Personality  that  lies 
beneath  our  faith  and  worship.  It  is 
forgotten  that  we  know  only  "in  part." 
Furthermore,  for  religion,  as  for  art  and 
life,  the  Vague  has  as  much  worth  and 
significance  as  the  Definite.  It  is  other- 
wise with  science,  whose  organ  is  the 
intellect.  But  it  is  a  mere  prejudice  of 
the  intellect  —  a  prejudice  against  which 
the  feelings  and  imagination  must  always 
protest  —  that  we  should  deem  what  is 
vague  to  be  less  real  than  what  is  definite. 
On  the  contrary,  the  Vague  is,  in  actual 
experience,  not  seldom  far  more  real. 
And  those  who,  in  ignorance  of  this 
truth,  endeavor  to  compress  it  into  fixed 
categories  of  thought,  are  always  in  dan- 
ger of  dissipating  its  essence.  The  theo- 
logical habit  of  defining  what  is  known 
only  "  in  part "  and  setting  up  the  defini- 
tions as  standards  of  orthodoxy,  is  a  seri- 
ous danger   to   true   religion.      As   such 


126         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

metaphysical  dogmas  multiply,  Agnosti- 
cism must  abound. 

But  though  theological  omniscience  has 
been  a  most  fruitful  cause  of  religious 
nescience,  it  remains,  lastly,  to  mention 
another  influence  which,  though  less  obvi- 
ous, has  been  no  less  potent.  It  may  be 
described  as  the  Zeitgeist^  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  the  whole  form  and  pressure  of  the 
time.  Ours  is  an  era  of  material  progress, 
of  useful  inventions,  of  great  practical  am- 
bitions and  achievements.  We  have  anni- 
hilated space  and  time  and  made  force  and 
matter  our  docile  servants.  But  the  hand 
is  subdued  to  what  it  works  in ;  and  these 
material  operations  and  utilitarian  ends 
have  undoubtedly  reacted  upon  our  own 
spirits.  They  have  imbued  us  with  me- 
chanical modes  of  thought  and  material 
standards  of  worth.  They  make  it  conceiv- 
able that  man  himself  is  only  a  machine  — 
a  somewhat  finer  machine  than  the  prod- 
ucts of  his  own  skill !  Now  with  this  con- 
ception of  personality  and  this  estimate  of 
human  dignity,  faith  in  man  and  faith  in 
God  cannot  easily  survive ;  and  Agnosti- 
cism is  then  merely  the  outward  record  of 
a  spiritual  paralysis  already  accomplished. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM        127 

And  to  this  blight  of  practical  material- 
ism came,  as  ally,  the  Darwinian  doctrine 
of  the  descent  of  man.  Whether  cor- 
rectly or  not,  Darwin's  hypothesis  was  in- 
terpreted as  degrading  man  from  little 
less  than  angel  to  little  more  than  ape. 
That  such  an  animal  should  be  the  image 
and  revelation  of  God,  seemed  incredible. 
As  Pascal  has  well  said,  it  is  dangerous  to 
let  man  see  too  clearly  how  he  is  on  a  level 
with  the  animals  without  showing  him  his 
greatness.  The  effect  in  the  present  case 
was  the  rise  of  an  evolutionary  Agnosti- 
cism which  strengthened  the  Agnosticism 
of  everyday  life  and  interest.  And  both 
were  reinforced  by  the  Agnosticism  of 
certain  men  of  science  who  insisted  on  re- 
serving the  appellation  of  "  knowledge  " 
for  the  mechanical  processes  of  weighing, 
counting,  timing,  and  measuring.  Alto- 
gether the  general  spirit  of  the  age,  both 
on  its  practical  and  theoretical  side,  has 
been  strikingly  favorable  to  the  rise  of 
Agnosticism. 

But  the  historical  and  psychological 
causes  which  produce  a  dogma  are  not  at 
the  same  time  a  guarantee  of  its  truth. 
The   premises   of    Agnosticism   we    have 


128         PHILOSOPHICAL  AGNOSTICISM 

already  shown  to  be  false.  When  the 
baselessness  of  this  dogma,  which  is  seem- 
ingly so  modest  yet  really  so  presumptu- 
ous, comes  to  be  generally  recognized,  we 
may  expect  to  see  it  disappear.  And  un- 
less all  signs  are  misleading,  the  night  is 
already  far  spent  and  the  dawn  is  at  hand. 
But,  as  we  strain  our  eyes  to  catch  the 
first  glimpses  of  the  blessed  morn,  let  us 
remember  that,  but  for  its  humiliation  and 
chastening  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
Agnosticism,  the  human  mind  would  not 
in  our  generation  have  initiated  the  most 
important  reform  since  the  Reformation,  — 
the  substitution  of  the  spiritual  religion  of 
Christ  for  the  speculative  religion  of  Chris- 
tendom. 


PART   III 

SPIRITUAL   RELIGION:    ITS  EVO- 
LUTION  AND   ESSENCE 


"  But  the  hour  cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the 
true  worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in 
spirit  and  in  truth." 


129 


SPIRITUAL   RELIGION  1 

Every  now  and  then  we  hear  the 
requiem  of  religion  chanted  alike  by  the 
spirits  who  mock  and  by  the  pious  souls 
who  have  "  no  language  but  a  cry."  I  sup- 
pose we  shall  always  have  professional 
mourners.  But  it  is  greatly  to  be  desired 
that  their  services  should  not  be  prema- 
turely given.  If  there  is  anything  in  the 
world  that  is  alive  and  active,  it  is  just 
this  religious  spirit  for  whose  demise  cer- 
tain mourners  go  about  the  streets.  The 
body  of  religion  changes,  the  spirit  and 
the  life  abide  forever.  To  the  assertion 
that  religion  is  defunct,  I  reply  by  pointing 
to  the  intense  interest  which  men  to-day 
everywhere  feel  in  religion.  It  was  re- 
cently stated  by  a  Massachusetts  judge  — 
Burke  observed  truly  that  we  Americans 

1  This  address  was  first  given  before  the  Liberal 
Club  of  Buffalo,  and  afterwards  before  a  similar 
club  in  Boston. 

131 


132  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

like  to  appeal  to  the  law  —  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  world  perennially  interest- 
ing but  religion.  The  ground  of  this 
dictum  is  to  be  found  in  the  constitution 
of  humanity;  for  the  human  soul  which 
the  things  of  sense  fail  to  satisfy  can 
attain  its  true  home  and  its  complete  self- 
realization  only  in  conscious  communion 
with  the  Spirit  behind  the  veil.  What 
better  evidence  of  the  vitality  of  religion 
is  needed  than  the  fact  that  millions  of 
our  people  go  every  Sunday  to  church, 
notwithstanding  the  crudeness  of  so  many 
ecclesiastical  dogmas  and  the  sonorous 
inanities  of  so  many  pulpits?  Men  are 
too  strongly  convinced  of  the  reality  and 
significance  of  religion  to  be  driven  out  of 
the  temple  by  a  caricature  of  its  heart-up- 
lifting services  and  ordinances.  Further- 
more, I  assert,  as  a  matter  of  observation, 
that  there  is  no  topic  —  not  even  politics, 
and  still  less  science  —  on  which  men  are 
so  anxious  to  be  instructed.  Man  feels 
himself  akin  to  the  All-Father,  and  he 
would  fain  know  more  of  the  conditions 
of  his  sonship. 

There  are,  no  doubt,  religious  changes. 
But  change  is  a  sign  of  life.     What  is 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  133 

dead  is  rigid  and  fixed.  What  lives 
grows,  develops,  and  realizes  its  essence 
through  differentiation.  In  this  respect 
the  development  of  religion  is  analogous 
to  that  of  philosophy,  science,  art,  or  any 
other  element  of  civilization.  Compare 
the  science  of  to-day  with  the  science  of 
the  age  of  savagery.  The  investigation 
of  nature's  laws  merely  for  the  sake  of 
knowing  them  would  have  seemed  to 
primitive  man  an  insane  pursuit.  The 
goal  of  his  endeavor  was  to  fill  an  empty 
stomach  and  so  maintain  a  precarious  ex- 
istence. If  he  used  his  mental  faculties, 
if  he  observed  and  made  inferences,  it  was 
to  procure  food,  to  escape  perils,  and  to 
overcome  rivals.  For  fallacious  reason- 
ing, for  imperfect  observation,  the  penalty 
was  death.  In  that  universal  struggle  for 
existence,  only  those  properly  adapted  to 
the  environment  could  survive.  This  is 
the  reason  why  there  is  so  much  truth  and 
wisdom  in  what  we  call  the  vulgar,  or 
common-sense,  view  of  things.  It  is  the 
deposit  of  the  experience  of  the  race  tested 
by  its  adequacy  for  life.  But  this  com- 
mon knowledge  kept  all  the  time  expand- 
ing.    In  ministering    to    their    physical 


134  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

wants,  men  were  unwittingly  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  ideal.  They  noticed  their  five 
fingers,  and  invented  arithmetic.  They 
measured  land,  and  originated  geometry. 
They  used  the  lever,  and  discovered  the 
first  principles  of  physics.  They  watched 
their  flocks  under  the  kindly  eyes  of  night, 
and,  looking  upward,  they  dreamed  of  the 
secrets  of  the  heavens.  Astronomy  is  our 
most  perfect  science.  By  it  we  regulate 
our  watches,  take  our  bearings  at  sea  and 
on  land,  and  predict  solar  and  lunar 
eclipses.  Think  of  the  astronomer,  if  you 
would  realize  vividly  the  growth  of  human 
knowledge  from  its  beginnings  with  our 
rude  progenitors,  who  could  not  count 
their  fingers  I  The  poor  savage  had  no 
chronometer  but  his  stomach.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  measured  the  lapse  of 
time  by  the  recurrence  of  hunger.  The 
word  "meal"  means  originally  "time." 
And  the  reduplication  "  meal-time,"  which 
is  not  merely  a  peculiarity  of  our  lan- 
guage, shows  that  the  sense  of  time  in 
primitive  man  was  pregnantly  stomachic. 
Time!  Time!!  like  the  rising  reverbera- 
tion of  a  dinner-bell!  The  measurement 
of  time  amongst  ourselves  is  astronomical; 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  135 

amongst  our  earliest  ancestors  it  was  gas- 
tronomical.  Would  you  see  at  a  glance 
the  evolution  of  human  science?  Then 
note  its  rise  in  an  empty  stomach  and  its 
progress,  often  slow  and  always  toilsome, 
to  the  mastery  of  the  laws  of  the  celestial 
universe. 

Man  has  evolved,  the  arts  have  evolved, 
science  has  evolved.  Evolution  means 
growth  and  progress  ;  there  is  nothing 
but  has  evolved  anywhere  in  this  universe 
of  God.  It  would  be  strange,  indeed, 
were  there  no  evolution  of  religion.  I 
care  not  how  one  defines  religion,  whether 
one  fills  it  with  superstition  or  empties  it 
of  everything  but  emotion  ;  whatever  it 
is,  it  has  come  to  be  what  it  is,  it  has  had 
a  history,  and  it  is  now  in  process  of 
development. 

Look  first  at  the  development  of  relig- 
ion in  the  individual  mind.  The  mind  of 
the  child  is  wax,  on  which  parents  and 
nurses  and  teachers  set  their  seal.  Our 
earliest  education  consists  in  appropriating 
the  ideas  and  beliefs  of  those  about  us. 
Children  get  many  of  them,  more  or  less 
consciously,  with  language ;  and  their 
mimetic  instinct,  joined  with  their  curi- 


136  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

osity,  keeps  them  constantly  adding  to 
the  first  stock.  How  much  there  is  for 
any  one  mind  to  learn  from  the  mind  of 
the  race  !  A  lifetime  would  be  insufficient 
for  any  one  of  us  to  acquire  and  assimilate 
the  mental  products  which  the  previous 
generations  have  transmitted.  The  utility 
of  such  general  information  is  also  obvious 
enough.  Yet  I  wish  to  point  out  that 
something  else  besides  the  absorption  of 
pre-existing  material  is  required  to  make 
a  man.  Unquestioning  recipiency,  how- 
ever far  you  carry  it,  is  only  the  infantile 
stage  of  education.  Many  persons,  per- 
haps the  majority,  never  go  very  much 
farther  ;  they  believe  what  they  are  told, 
and  consider  themselves  learned  when 
they  have  been  told  a  great  deal.  1  know 
an  encyclopaedic  professor  of  theology 
who  said  to  a  doubting  student:  ''Sir, 
I  never  had  a  doubt  in  my  life."  That 
man's  mind  was  like  the  mind  of  a  little 
child,  not  in  its  guilelessness,  which  is  a 
Christian  virtue,  but  in  its  absolute  de- 
pendence upon  others'  thought. 

The  great  Teacher  bade  men  live  each 
his  own  individual  life,  heedless  of  the 
rules  and  traditions  of  Scribes  and  Phari- 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION     '  137 

sees.  This  is  the  second  stage  in  the 
development  of  the  soul.  The  first  stage 
is  that  of  acquiescence  and  absorption  in 
custom,  tradition,  inherited  beliefs,  and 
sacrosanct  formulae.  These  are  our  first 
schoolmasters ;  and  the  discipline  they 
give  us  is  invaluable.  The  impression 
they  make  is  so  deep  and  lasting  that 
many  persons  never  pass  to  the  higher 
stage  of  free  and  independent  manhood. 
Yet  there  is  probably  in  every  mind  a 
certain  growth  in  this  direction.  In  the 
best  minds  the  tendency  is  so  strong 
that  it  issues  in  what,  considering  its 
nature  and  its  effects,  we  may  designate 
a  spiritual  puberty.  It  is  a  coming  of 
age  of  the  master  of  the  house,  who  has 
hitherto  been  kept  in  leading-strings. 
He  is  disposed  to  call  everybody  to 
account.  He  despises  tradition,  sneers 
at  custom,  doubts  the  certainties  of  the 
creeds,  and  finds  that  nothing  is  indubi- 
table on  earth  or  in  heaven.  The  assimi- 
lating soul  has  become  reactive  ;  the 
unchained  Titan  flings  himself  against 
every  restraining  authority.  This  is  the 
stage  of  doubt  that  follows  in  normal 
mental    development  —  if    this   develop- 


138  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

ment  is  carried  along  naturally — upon 
the  stage  of  credulity  and  acquiescence. 

In  some  form,  though  not  perhaps  in 
this  violent  degree,  every  thoughtful  youth 
must  be  conscious  of  such  an  experience. 
It  is,  certainly,  no  uncommon  thing  to  see 
the  credulity  and  submission  of  youth 
give  way  to  doubt,  denial,  and  fire-eyed 
defiance.  But  this  is  an  abnormal  condi- 
tion of  the  soul ;  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  it  cannot  endure.  It  is,  in  fact, 
the  hurricane  which  precedes  the  settled 
calm  ;  it  is  the  darkness  of  chaos  ere  the 
spirit  says,  "Let  there  be  light."  The 
third  stage  of  mental  development  — 
happy  is  he  who  attains  thereunto !  — 
consists  in  the  readjustment  of  the  old 
material  to  the  new,  in  the  discovery  of 
a  higher  standpoint,  in  the  attainment  of 
an  ultimate  view  of  things  broad  enough 
to  embrace  all  the  facts  we  know  of  man 
and  nature  and  God,  in  such  harmonious 
relations  as  will  satisfy  the  demands  of 
the  scientific  intellect  and  the  yearnings 
of  that  human  heart  whereby  we  live. 

Credulity,  doubt,  reasoned  belief,  or 
faith:  these  are  the  three  phases  of  mental 
development,  and,  therefore,  they  are  the 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  139 

three  stages  of  the  evolution  of  religion  in 
the  individual  soul.  The  child  lives  by 
faith  as  by  his  mother's  milk;  the  youth, 
conscious  of  strength,  revolts  against, the 
powers  that  have  held  him  in  tutelage; 
the  man  regains  peace  by  a  larger  knowl- 
edge and  a  riper  experience,  through 
which  the  youth's  doubt  is  overcome  and 
the  child's  faith  essentially  vindicated. 
Scepticism  is,  we  may  say,  only  a  halting- 
place,  not  a  goal;  it  is  the  growing-pains 
of  the  spirit. 

Agnosticism  is  the  apotheosis  of  scep- 
ticism. It  is  scepticism  as  a  creed,  as 
a  system,  as  an  ultimate  resting-place. 
Those  who  proclaim  it  strangely  misread 
the  processes  and  the  conditions  of  our 
spiritual  life.  They  make  the  aimless 
gropings  of  the  youthful  intellect  an  ideal 
for  the  thinking  of  mature  men.  Only, 
instead  of  the  awful  earnestness  of  the  in- 
quiring youth,  they  often  affect  an  indiffer- 
ence to  the  great  problems  which  oppress 
him.  As  though  we  could  be  indifferent 
to  the  highest  interests  of  the  human 
spirit!  So  long  as  life  lasts,  so  long  must 
we  strive  to  grasp  the  ultimate  truth  of 
things.     To  shut  our  eyes  to  problems  is 


140  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

an  ostrich  policy.  Man  is  called  by  an 
inner  voice  to  strive,  and  strive,  and  strive, 
and  not  to  yield.  Agnosticism  would 
eradicate  this  noble  endeavor.  Its  only 
justification,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  that 
men  never  attain  the  absolute  truth,  but 
only  make  successive  approximations  to  it. 
But  this  very  fact  indicates  with  reason- 
able clearness  that  God  meant  our  life  to 
be  one  of  constant  and  progressive  en- 
deavor. Such  was,  in  the  last  century, 
the  faith  of  Lessing,  and,  in  this,  of 
Browning.  Our  religious  thought  is  to 
be  on  the  growth.  The  complaint  that 
no  system  is  final  rests  upon  a  misappre- 
hension of  the  nature  of  thought ;  for 
thought  realizes  itself  only  in  continuous 
progression.  The  evolution  of  religious 
belief  is  necessitated  alike  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  mind  and  by  the  inexhaustible 
character  of  the  divine  object  of  religion. 
Agnosticism  is  a  passing  fever  of  juvenile 
free-thinking. 

So  much,  then,  of  evolution  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  individual  soul.  But 
religion  has  also  an  objective  side.  It  is 
a  system  of  doctrine  and  worship  em- 
bodied in  the  creeds  and   rituals  of   the 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  141 

churches.  When  we  speak  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  religion,  it  is  of  this  body  of 
dogmas  we  think  first.  After  the  sketch 
I  have  given  of  the  development  of  relig- 
ion in  the  individual  mind,  it  will  not  be 
so  difficult  to  trace  the  development  of 
religion  as  an  objective  system  and  insti- 
tution, that  is,  as  an  established  doctrine 
and  mode  of  worship.  Hitherto  we  have 
regarded  religion  as  a  process  in  the  mind 
of  the  single  person ;  now  we  are  to  re- 
gard it  as  a  product  of  the  mind  of  hu- 
manity. 

The  first  thing  to  be  noted  in  the  early 
history  of  religions  is  that  dogma  occupies 
a  quite  inconspicuous  position.  With  the 
history  of  Christianity  before  our  eyes, 
this  statement  seems  paradoxical.  But 
the  fact  is  that  Christianity  differs  from 
all  earlier  religions  in  its  insistence  on 
articles  of  faith.  Yet  this  dogmatic  spirit, 
as  modern  criticism  shows,  was  a  late 
development  in  the  Christian  church,  and 
a  foreign  graft  upon  primitive  Christian- 
ity. Not  belief,  but  ritual,  is  the  key- 
note of  primitive  religions.  Their  essence 
is  a  cult,  not  a  creed.  They  prescribe 
modes    in   which    God's    anger    may  be 


142  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

averted  or  His  favor  enjoyed.  It  is  true 
that  all  religion  presupposes  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  But  I  firmly  believe  that 
no  rational  being  has  ever  permanently 
doubted,  or  will  ever  continuously  doubt, 
the  existence  of  God,  though  men  have 
called  Him  by  different  names,  which  best 
seemed  to  them  to  express  the  infinitude 
of  His  nature. 

Certainly  for  the  primitive  races  of  men, 
God  was  an  ever-present,  a  never-ques- 
tioned reality.  They  conceived  of  Him  in 
the  two  ways  which  all  later  thinking  has 
followed,  either  as  a  Great  Human  Spirit 
or  as  a  Great  Natural  Power,  though  never 
exclusively  one  or  the  other.  Under  the 
latter  aspect,  God  was  terrible  as  the  dev- 
astating storm  or  the  rattling  thunder; 
under  the  former,  He  was  the  mild  and 
kindly  Father  of  the  tribe.  According 
to  their  experience  and  environment, 
primitive  men  inclined  to  the  one  or  to 
the  other  of  these  conceptions  of  the  God- 
head. The  tribes  that  personified  the 
powers  of  nature  dwelt  in  fear  and  trem- 
bling, with  a  haunting  sense  of  alienation 
from  the  terrible  Ruler  of  the  world, 
though  with  the  conviction  also  that  the 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  143 

God  might  be  rendered  friendly.  The 
tribes  that  practised  ancestor-worship, 
making  God  their  Father,  enjoyed  a  sense 
of  union  and  communion  with  the  Divine 
Spirit,  who  deigned  to  join  them  at  the 
common  meal  and  sit  with  them  round 
the  common  hearth.  For  either  class  of 
worshippers  religion  consisted  in  cult, 
and  in  cult  only.  There,  religion  meant 
the  rites  and  ceremonies  —  many  of  them 
very  absurd — by  which  the  hostile  nature- 
God  was  won  over  to  friendship  with 
man.  Here,  religion  meant  the  pouring 
out  of  libations  and  the  offering  of  food 
to  the  ancestor-God  who  guarded  the 
homes  of  his  children.  In  both  cases 
religion  consisted  of  practices,  not  of  be- 
liefs. There  was  room  for  hetero-praxy^ 
or  an  error  in  ritual ;  but  there  was  no 
room  for  hetero-doxy ^  or  an  error  in  belief. 
Hence  among  the  Greeks,  —  who  are  the 
authors  of  art,  science,  literature,  and 
philosophy,  who,  in  fact,  originated  all 
occidental  civilization  with  the  single  ex- 
ception of  religion,  —  the  notion  of  "  her- 
esy" was  absolutely  unknown.  There 
could  be  no  heretic  in  the  primitive  world. 
Cult  was  the  first  stage  in  the  evolution 
of  religion. 


144  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

The  second  stage  is  that  of  creed  or 
dogma.  This  is  a  step  in  advance  of  cult 
or  ritual ;  for  it  presupposes  considerable 
development  of  the  intellect.  I  have 
already  said  that  cults  imply  the  elements 
of  a  creed,  —  God's  existence  and  man's 
power  of  influencing  God;  but  this  be-, 
lief  is  implicit,  latent,  unconscious,  and 
overlaid  by  ritual.  It  becomes  explicit 
and  predominant  with  the  growth  of  hu- 
man experience  and  reflection.  The  creed 
may  be  the  philosophy  of  a  pre-existing 
ritual.  If  so,  belief  in  the  creed  becomes  as 
necessary  as  the  performance  of  the  ritual. 
But  the  creed  may  transcend  national 
traditions  ;  it  may  offer  a  new  theory  of 
God's  will  concerning  man  or  of  man's 
relation  to  God.  Thus  the  Hebrew 
prophets  of  the  eighth  and  following  cen- 
turies endeavored  to  teach  the  nation, 
which  had  given  itself  up  to  forms,  that 
God  sought  justice,  mercy,  and  truth,  and 
could  not  away  with  their  sacrifices  and 
burnt  offerings.  The  burden  of  the  Gos- 
pels, again,  is  just  the  fatherliness  of  God 
and  the  revelation  of  His  love  to  man. 

But  such  simple,  undeveloped  creeds  are 
not  the  most  striking  varieties  of  the  spe- 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  145 

cies.  For  these  we  must  have  a  body  of 
doctrines,  belief  in  which  is  necessary  to 
salvation.  The  perfect  dogmatist  declares 
that  we  are  saved  by  faith  ;  and  by  faith 
he  means  acceptance  of  a  number  of 
propositions  formulated  by  some  council 
or  synod.  The  believer  wins  Heaven  ; 
the  doubter  —  let  him  be  anathema ! 
Among  Mohammedans,  the  standards  re- 
quire acceptance  of  the  Prophet  as  the 
messenger  of  God.  It  is  not  so  easy  to 
describe  the  creed  of  the  Christian  church. 
For,  unlike  the  Mohammedan,  the  Chris- 
tian nations  have  been  characterized  by 
progress,  and  progress  means  more  vitality. 
That  which  lives  changes  and  varies.  The 
creed  of  Christendom  is  not  fixed,  but 
plastic  ;  it  is  not  one,  but  many.  Only 
death  gives  the  rigidity  and  uniformity 
which  those  good  souls  desire  who  are 
always  seeking  the  living  among  the  dead. 
A  living  religion  is  like  an  organic  species; 
it  never  is  but  is  always  becoming  ;  it  is 
always  passing  into  new  varieties.  What 
life  there  has  been  in  Christianity  to  pro- 
duce all  the  creeds  of  Christendom,  — 
the  creed  of  the  Catholic,  the  creed  of  the 
Protestant,  the  creed  of  the  Episcopalian, 


146  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

the  creed  of  the  Presbyterian,  the  creed  of 
the  Independent,  the  creed  of  the  Quaker, 
and  the  creeds  of  all  the  forgotten  denomi- 
nations whom  the  church  outlawed  for 
heresy  !  But  one  thing  is  common  to  all 
these  doctrinaires  :  they  hold  that  dogma 
is  the  essence  of  religion,  and  each  claims 
that  his  dogma  is  not  merely  truth  but  the 
truth.  Religion  is  right  belief,  or  ortho- 
doxy ;  and  orthodoxy  is  my  "  doxy,"  while 
a  "  doxy  "  other  than  mine  is  heterodoxy. 
The  stage  of  creed  is  higher  than  the 
stage  of  cult.  We  must  also  observe  that 
the  lower  is  taken  up  in  the  higher,  as  an 
instrument  for  its  expression.  Thus  in 
the  historic  church  of  Rome,  while  dogma 
is  the  soul,  ritual  is  the  body  of  religion. 
The  rites  and  ceremonies  which  constitute 
the  religion  of  cult,  as  well  as  the  beliefs 
they  imply,  are  absorbed,  and  not  only 
absorbed  but  transcended,  by  the  relig- 
ion of  creed.  But  not  only  does  this 
latter  make  dogma  the  primary  and  es- 
sential element  of  religion,  it  also  multi- 
plies indefinitely  the  articles  of  faith.  I 
cannot  here  analyze  the  creeds  of  the 
churches.  It  will  suffice  to  observe  that, 
howsoever  they   may   differ  in  details  of 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  147 

doctrine,  they  all  agree  in  furnishing  a 
theory  of  the  Divine  existence  and  govern- 
ment, a  theory  of  the  origin  and  destina- 
tion of  man,  and  a  theory  of  the  creation, 
course,  and  final  purpose  of  the  world. 

These  are  all  vast,  nay,  they  are  infinite 
subjects  ;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
religious  mind,  in  grappling  with  them, 
should  have  fallen  short  of  the  absolute 
truth.  What  else  could  have  been  ex- 
pected ?  Certainly  the  natural  under- 
standing is  prone  to  error  ;  and,  even  if 
we  suppose  God  to  have  made  a  supra- 
natural  communication  to  chosen  spirits, 
we  can  only  apprehend  as  much  of  that 
message  as  our  finite  intellects  can  com- 
pass. In  other  words,  given  a  revelation, 
or  given  no  revelation,  our  knowledge  of 
the  ultimate  mystery  of  things  is  but  par- 
tial, provisional,  and  true  in  a  relative 
sense.  In  the  past  the  churches  have  all 
sinned  through  ignoring  this  consideration. 
They  have  claimed  to  be  in  possession  of 
the  final  and  absolute  truth  about  nearly 
everything.  The  Christian  churches  knew 
that  the  earth  stands  still,  with  heaven 
above  and  hell  beneath.  They  knew  that 
the  world  was  created  in  six  days,  and  so 


148  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

much  of  it  each  day.  They  knew  exactly 
how  the  first  man  and  the  first  woman 
came  into  existence.  They  knew  how 
languages  originated.  They  knew  why 
men  must  toil  and  sweat,  and  why  it  is 
that  bo3^s  kill  snakes.  Nor  was  it  to  these 
problems  of  nature  alone  that  the  religion 
of  dogma  furnished  ready-made  answers  ; 
these  indeed  were  only  episodes  in  its  main 
theme.  Its  peculiar  boast  was  that  it  fur- 
nished a  revelation  of  the  will  of  God  and 
of  God's  doings  in  nature  and  in  human 
history.  In  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  it  possessed  the  truth,  final, 
complete,  and  absolute,  about  all  things 
of  any  importance  in  the  life  of  man  and 
God.  These  infallible  oracles  came  from 
God  Himself,  who  inspired  the  authors. 
The  church  was  as  sure  of  the  actual 
authors  as  we  are  of  the  writers  of  current 
literature.  Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch  ; 
Solomon  wrote  Ecclesiastes  ;  David  wrote 
the  Psalms  ;  Job  and  Isaiah  composed  the 
works  that  bear  their  names. 

The  arrogance  of  this  dogmatism  is 
hastening  the  close  of  the  second  stage 
of  religion.  It  is  the  pride  of  intellect 
that  goes   before  confusion   and   discom- 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  149 

fiture.  Dogma  has  conjured  up  the 
avenger,  doubt.  Men  now  begin,  where 
they  are  thoughtful  and  serious,  to 
ask  whether  religion  has  not  had  its 
day,  whether  the  future  generations 
will  not  be  godless,  whether  the  uni- 
verse, which  seems  to  us  divine,  will  not 
turn  out  to  be  an  atheistic  machine. 
France  well  reflects  the  Zeitgeist;  the 
youthful  philosopher  of  the  new  genera- 
tion, the  late  M.  Guyau,  has  left  us  a 
brilliant  work  on  "The  Irreligion  of  the 
Future."  Be  the  future  what  it  may, 
there  are  few  of  the  dogmas  once  held  dear 
that  now  strike  us  as  axiomatic.  Astron- 
omy has  set  the  earth  spinning,  dislocated 
heaven  and  hell,  and  whirled  man  from  the 
centre  of  the  spatial  universe.  Biology 
and  geology  have  revolutionized  our  views 
of  the  origin  of  our  race  and  of  the  cosmos. 
History  and  criticism  have  made  the  Bible 
a  new  book,  or  rather  a  new  collection  of 
books,  written,  for  the  most  part,  we  know 
not  by  what  authors  or  at  what  dates,  and 
put  together,  as  a  Bible,  we  know  not  on 
what  principle.  All  the  old  landmarks, 
Moses,  Solomon,  Job,  are  gone  ;  and  a 
restless  sea  of  criticism  threatens  to  engulf 


150  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

religion  with  the  records  it  adored.  This 
is  the  so-called  '-'  warfare  "  of  science  and 
religion.  For  him  who  has  eyes  to  see, 
the  religion  of  dogma  lies  exhausted  on 
the  field. 

Shall  we  then  despair  ?  Lift  up  thine 
eyes  towards  the  eastern  sky  and  see  what 
light  is  breaking  just  beneath  the  horizon. 
It  is  the  star  which  the  wise  men  of  yore 
beheld  and  followed.  That  mildly  glow- 
ing radiance  is  the  immortal  genius  of  re- 
ligion. Once  eclipsed  by  nebulous  ritual 
and  dogma,  it  shines  now,  and  will  shine 
upon  future  generations,  in  its  own  inef- 
fable beauty  and  purity.  Itself  the  breath 
of  God,  its  kindly  light  will  cheer  and 
gladden  the  hearts  of  all  the  children  of 
God.  Religion  is  life  and  spirit.  It  has 
long  been  buried  beneath  creeds  and  su- 
perstitions of  men's  device  ;  it  now  bursts 
its  cerements,  and  comes  forth  a  glorified 
reality.  The  decay  of  dogma  is  the  resur- 
rection of  spiritual  religion. 

Religion  is  life  with  God  ;  dogma  is  a 
theory  of  that  life.  The  mistake  of  the 
theologians  has  been  in  supposing  that 
there  could  be  no  religious  life  without 
a  correct  theory  of  life.     As  though  there 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  151 

could  be  no  digestion  without  a  knowledge 
of  physiology,  or  no  imagination  without 
a  knowledge  of  psychology  !  Dogma  was 
intended  to  nourish  and  support  religion ; 
its  kindness,  alas,  choked  and  suffocated 
her.  The  creeds  were  meant  to  be  the 
defensive  fortifications  of  religion ;  alas, 
that  they  should  have  turned  their  artil- 
lery against  the  citadel  itself  !  But  spirit 
cannot  be  captured  by  mechanism.  Life 
outlives  the  theories  that  would  tear  out 
the  heart  of  its  secret. 

"  Grau,  theuer  Freund,  ist  alle  Theorie, 
Und  griin  des  Lebens  gold'ner  Baum." 

The  third  and  final  stage  of  religion, 
which  is  now  dawning  upon  us,  cannot 
be  so  easily  described  as  its  predecessors. 
The  religion  of  cult  and  the  religion  of 
dogma  are  things  of  the  past :  and  it  is  a 
striking  fact  that  we  never  know  things 
thoroughly  till  we  have  gone  beyond  them 
in  our  experience.  There  is  a  sort  of 
antinomy  between  living  and  knowing. 
"Has  been,"  not  "is,"  is  the  badge  of  all 
our  knowledge,  especially  in  the  realm  of 
human  life.  The  religion  of  to-day,  there- 
fore, will  be  better  xinderstood  by  future 


152  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

inquirers  than  by  us  who  experience  it. 
But  it  seems  to  me  that  it  may  be  de- 
scribed, not  inaccurately  and  not  too 
vaguely,  as  the  religion  of  spirit.  Dog- 
matic religion  is  retreating ;  spiritual  re- 
ligion is  advancing.  Henceforth  we  shall 
call  that  man  religious  who,  be  his  belief 
and  knowledge  what  they  may,  is  pos- 
sessed of  a  sense  of  union  and  fellowship 
with  God.  In  the  coming  ages  of  per- 
fected Christianity,  religion  will  be  defined 
as  a  man's  permanent  attitude  and  frame 
of  mind  towards  the  All-Father. 

But,  while  it  is  true  that  we  cannot  de- 
scribe very  adequately  the  religion  of  to- 
day because  it  is  a  part  of  our  life,  of  one 
thing  we  may  be  assured,  that  it  has  not 
broken  with  the  past  and  will  not  be  alien 
to  the  future  development  of  religion. 
In  the  historical  world  there  is  no  solution 
of  continuity.  The  religion  of  dogma 
took  up  the  religion  of  cult.  The  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  which  holds  belief  in 
certain  doctrines  essential  to  salvation,  at 
the  same  time  uses  ritual  for  the  expres- 
sion of  its  creed  and  worship.  So  in  the 
religion  of  to-day,  though  spirit  rises  su- 
perior to  dogma  and  to  cult,  it  does  not 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  153 

repudiate  its  convictions  or  wage  a  puri- 
tanic war  against  symbols.  Spiritual  re- 
ligion will  part  with  none  of  the  elements 
which  have  entered  constitutively  into  the 
development  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness. We  must  be  very  careful  to  define 
accurately  the  mutual  relations  of  the 
three  stages  of  religion.  They  differ,  not 
in  elements,  but  in  emphasis.  In  the  re- 
ligion of  cult,  the  emphasis  fell  on  actions 
of  a  certain  kind,  that  is,  on  ritual  observ- 
ances. The  worshippers  performed  the 
rites  under  the  influence  of  certain  beliefs, 
indeed,  and  in  a  certain  frame  of  mind; 
both  of  these,  however,  remained  latent 
and  unconscious.  The  religion  of  creed 
lays  stress  on  belief  in  dogma  as  essential 
to  salvation ;  but  it  rejoices  in  the  use  of 
symbols,  and  it  assumes,  though  not  very 
consciously  or  explicitly,  that  a  sound  faith 
and  a  correct  ritual  will  issue  in  a  pious. 
God-fearing  life.  Now  in  the  final  devel- 
opment of  religion,  it  will  be  explicitly 
recognized  that  its  primary  and  constitu- 
tive element  is  neither  cult  nor  creed,  but 
what  I  may  call  the  soul's  entire  attitude 
towards  the  Invisible, — an  attitude  which, 
in   its  highest  attainment,  embraces   the 


154  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

creature's  sense  of  dependence  upon  the 
Creator,  the  child's  loving  and  reverent 
trust  in  the  Father,  and  the  man's  fellow- 
ship with  the  Divine  Companion  who 
alone  can  satisfy  the  boundless  and  im- 
mortal yearnings  of  the  human  spirit. 

To  prevent  misapprehension,  it  may  be 
noted  in  passing  that  spiritual  religion  is 
something  very  different  from  ethical  or 
humanitarian  culture.  The  enthusiasm  of 
humanity  is,  indeed,  the  certain  outcome 
of  deep  fellowship  with  the  Father  of 
Spirits,  as  we  may  see  in  Paul  and  Luther 
and  many  a  less  distinguished  preacher  of 
the  gospel.  It  is  a  blessed  characteristic 
of  our  own  age  that  religion  has  come  to 
express  itself  so  nobly  in  practical  well- 
doing. But  beneficence  is  not  piety.  To 
make  the  love  of  man  the  essence  of  relig- 
ion, is  to  misread  the  latter  and  to  divest 
the  former  of  its  supreme  spiritual  dy- 
namic. If  the  religious  man  is  a  benedic- 
tion to  earth,  it  is  because  his  soul  is 
bathed  in  the  dews  of  heaven. 

We  have  now  traced  the  growth  of 
religion  as  a  process  in  the  individual 
consciousness  and  as  a  product  of  the  ob- 
jectifying reason  of  mankind.     We  have 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  155 

found  that,  as  a  process,  religious  life 
passes  from  credulity  to  doubt  and  from 
doubt  to  faith  ;  and  that,  as  a  product, 
religion  develops  from  cult  to  dogma  and 
from  dogma  to  spirit.  These  two  lines  of 
development  are  parallel.  In  the  life  of 
the  mind  doubt  is  higher  than  credulity, 
while  faith  carries  us  beyond  both  to  those 
indubitable  intuitions  which  are  the  con- 
stitutive factors  of  intelligence.  Simi- 
larly, in  the  external  sphere,  doctrines  are 
higher  than  ceremonies,  though  from  the 
♦highest  standpoint  each  gives  us  only  the 
letter  which  kills,  while  it  is  spirit  alone 
that  makes  alive.  Finally,  credulity  and 
doubt  correspond  to  the  religion  of  cult 
and  dogma,  while  open-eyed  faith  and 
reasonable  hope  are  the  struggling  soul's 
response  to  the  religion  of  spirit.  Indeed, 
spiritual  religion,  which  we  have  described 
as  the  late  fruit  of  the  tree  of  objective 
institutions  and  creeds,  cannot  be  distin- 
guished from  that  highest  phase  of  re- 
ligious life  which,  in  the  mind  of  the 
individual,  supervenes  upon  credulity  and 
doubt.  At  this  point  objective  and  sub- 
jective religion  are  one  and  the  same.  To 
the  religion  of  spirit,  therefore,  —  a  relig- 


156  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

ion  which  is  in  the  soul  and  for  the  soul, 

—  we  may  conceive  historical  progress 
and  psychological  development  alike  to  be 
tending.  When,  from  the  least  to  the 
greatest,  all  shall  in  this  way  "  know  the 
Lord,"  the  millennium,  in  which  all  good 
men  believe  at  least  as  an  ideal,  will  actu- 
ally have  come  upon  us. 

Towards  this  goal  the  race  is  slowly  but 
steadily  advancing.  The  religion  of  cult 
has  vanished  from  the  civilized  world. 
Civilization  is  characterized  by  a  subordi- 
nation of  the  physical  to  the  mental  ;  it 
puts  material  things  to  spiritual  uses. 
The  civilized  man  has  come  to  himself. 
He  can  no  longer  be  satisfied  with  mere 
external  rites  and  ceremonies.  They  must 
be  informed  by  thoughts.  The  religion 
of  dogma  becomes  a  necessity.  It  will 
probably  long  remain  a  necessity  even  for 
a  considerable  portion  of  Christendom. 
It  is  the  religion  of  elementary  reflection, 

—  the  religion  which  asks  and  answers 
questions  about  the  deep  things  of  God 
with  equal  readiness  and  assurance.  Its 
questions  appall  the  critical,  but  its  an- 
swers satisfy  the  multitude.  Indeed, 
dogmatic  religion  owes  its  security  to  the 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  157 

fact  that  man  yearns  for  definitive  and  ex- 
act information  about  his  own  origin  and 
destiny.  By  a  well-known  psychological 
law,  the  yearning  predisposes  him  to  ac- 
cept any  theory,  but  especially  one  claim- 
ing authority  and  finality.  The  religion 
of  dogma  has,  therefore,  always  appealed 
to  a  supranatural  revelation.  Behind  this 
intrenchment  it  is  impregnable,  even  in 
the  gross  form  of  Mormonism,  so  long  as 
the  masses  of  mankind  are  swayed  more 
by  personal  hopes  and  fears  than  by  in- 
sight and  love  of  truth.  But  the  spirit  of 
inquiry  cannot  be  permanently  repressed  ; 
and  in  recent  times  it  has  dared  to  investi- 
gate the  nature  and  grounds  of  revelation. 
The  answer  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
was  the  decree  of  Papal  Infallibility.  The 
effect  of  this  decree  was  to  reassert  the 
identity  of  religion  with  belief  in  divinely 
revealed  doctrine,  and  to  furnish  an  infal- 
lible expounder  and  interpreter  of  this 
doctrine.  It  committed  the  larger  portion 
of  Christendom  irrevocably  to  the  religion 
of  dogma,  for  which,  indeed,  it  had  always 
consistently  stood  in  the  past.  The  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church,  rich  in  the  reas- 
sured inheritance  of    nineteen  centuries, 


158  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

confronts  the  rising  spirit  of  liberal  relig- 
ion with  a  serenity  and  confidence  dis- 
turbed only  by  contempt. 

The  summary  procedure  adopted  by  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  was  not  available 
for  Protestantism.  The  reformers  had 
appealed  from  ecclesiastical  authority  and 
tradition  to  reason,  and  especially  to  the 
Bible.  They  failed  to  observe  that  these 
new  authorities  could  not  withdraw  them- 
selves from  investigation.  The  "all-de- 
stroying" Kant  dissected  the  human  mind, 
and  asserted  the  incapacity  of  reason  to 
know  anything  of  itself,  or  to  demonstrate, 
even  with  the  aid  of  other  powers,  the 
existence  of  God  or  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  The  image  of  the  Bible,  which 
Protestantism  adored,  fell  to  pieces  in  the 
hands  of  critics  who  wrenched  from  it  the 
secret  of  its  origin,  structure,  and  diversi- 
fied meaning  and  purpose.  We  have,  I 
am  very  sure,  a  nobler  Bible  than  we  lost 
and  a  diviner  faculty  than  Kant  denied. 
But,  in  view  of  the  revolutionary  work  of 
critical  science,  scholarship  and  philosophy, 
—  a  work  demanded  by  the  spirit  of  Prot- 
estantism, —  it  is  no  longer  possible  for 
any  Protestant  sect  to  wave  the  banner  of 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  159 

final  and  infallible  authority  in  matters  of 
religion.  Protestantism,  in  all  its  forms, 
originated  in  the  assertion  of  creeds  or 
polities  ;  but  the  spirit  of  Protestantism 
has  always  carried  it  beyond  its  starting- 
points.  Its  history  is  the  record  of  a 
growing  disinclination  to  that  dogmatic 
apprehension  of  religion  which  it  owes  to 
the  Church  of  Rome. 

This  tendency  can  be  illustrated  by  a 
glance  at  the  history  of  American  Chris- 
tianity. ^  At  the  beginning  of  the  Revo- 
lution the  whole  number  of  religious 
organizations  existing  in  the  Colonies  is 
estimated  to  have  been  about  nineteen 
hundred  and  fifty,  or  one  for  every  seven- 
teen hundred  souls.  The  creed  of  three 
fourths  of  these  churches,  Congregational, 
Baptist,  Presbyterian,  and  other,  was  Cal- 
vinism; while  of  the  remainder  some  three 
hundred  churches  professed  the  faith  of 
the  Church  of  England.  Methodism  had 
scarcely  gained  a  footing  in  the  country; 
and  the  Catholics  had  not  more  than 
twenty-six   priests    with   twice   as   many 

1  The  historical  data  which  follow  are  taken  from 
Diman's  Orations  and  Essays,  pp.  201-264.  (The 
census  is  that  of  1870.) 


160  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

congregations.  If  anything  seemed  prob- 
able in  the  future,  it  was  the  ascendency 
of  the  Calvinistic  creed. 

Now  what  American  history  shows  is 
the  decay  of  this  creed,  and,  with  it,  of 
all  merely  creedal  religion.  The  Metho- 
dists, who  had  no  existence  here  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution,  are  to-day  the 
largest  religious  body  in  the  land.  The 
growth  of  Methodism  may  be  attributed 
in  part  to  its  effective  organization  and 
in  part  to  the  missionary  zeal  of  its 
preachers  ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  its  main  source  of  success  is  to  be 
found  in  its  appeal  to  the  feelings  and 
in  its  disparagement  of  the  intellect  in 
which  Calvinism  lay  intrenched.  The 
Baptists,  who  are  nominally  Calvinists, 
are  now,  as  they  were  at  the  beginning 
of  the  century,  second  in  numerical  rank; 
but  their  fundamental  principle,  —  the 
Bible,  the  Bible  only,  —  taken  in  con- 
nection with  their  polity,  has  enabled 
them  silently  to  drop  the  old  theology 
and  unconsciously  to  adjust  themselves 
to  the  new  spiritual  environment.  The 
Congregationalists,  who,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Revolution,  were  by  far  the 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  161 

strongest  and  most  numerous  of  all  re- 
ligious bodies,  are  now  one  of  the  minor 
denominations  in  point  of  numbers. 
With  them  the  process  of  adaptation 
was  more  difficult,  for  the  body  had  a 
deeply  ingrained  and  inherited  theo- 
logical habit.  But,  after  producing  Uni- 
tarianism  and  Transcendentalism,  the 
sturdy  mother  also  made  her  peace  with 
the  anti-dogmatic  tendency  of  the  age. 

There  remain  of  the  larger  denomina- 
tions who  made  profession  of  the  ancient 
creed  only  the  Presbyterians.  And  they 
have  more  than  held  their  own  during 
the  century.  The  steady  growth  of  this 
religious  body,  which  never,  at  least  in 
form,  abated  one  jot  or  tittle  of  its 
Confession,  seems  at  first  sight  irreconcil- 
able with  the  view  we  are  advancing. 
But  this  growth  is  to  be  attributed,  not 
to  the  distinctive  creed,  but  to  the  wise, 
orderly,  and  admirably  effective  system 
of  church  government  by  which  the 
Presbyterian  body  secured  to  itself  a 
full  share  of  the  fruits  of  American 
Christianity.  Indeed,  the  creed,  so  long 
held  with  the  resolute  tenacity  character- 
istic of  the  Scottish  race  that  brought  it 


162  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

to  these  shores,  has  at  last  come  to  be  felt 
as  a  burden  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  It 
must  soon  undergo  revision.  The  result 
bids  fair  to  be,  as  it  was  in  the  like  case 
with  the  Congregationalists,  a  "  com- 
promise document."  But  the  right  of 
a  liberal  party  within  the  Presbyterian 
Church  will  be  established,  and  the  last 
residuum  of  Protestant  dogmatism  will 
be  officially  opened  to  the  leavening  in- 
fluences of  the  religion  of  spirit. 

It  may  be  objected  that,  while  these 
facts  do  indeed  show  the  decadence  of 
the  old  theology,  they  fail  to  prove  the 
decay  of  dogmatic  religion  in  general. 
The  objector,  however,  overlooks  the  all- 
important  point  that  the  religious  move- 
ment which  we  have  been  examining 
was  not  so  much  a  reaction  against  Cal- 
vinism as  a  protest  against  the  interpre- 
tation of  Christianity  as  a  system  of 
dogmas.  Only  half  its  meaning  can  be 
read  from  the  modifications  which  have 
been  made  in  the  creeds.  For  those 
creeds,  which  are  survivals  of  dogmatism, 
resist,  like  the  Matter  of  Plato's  cos- 
mology, the  transforming  breath  of  the 
creative  spirit.     It  is  the  penalty  of  the 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  163 

new  that  it  must  always  settle  with 
the  old ;  and  for  this  reason  its  true 
character  is  difficult  to  discern.  But 
whoever  will  compare  the  best  preaching 
of  the  present  day  with  the  sermons  of 
the  earlier  part  of  the  century  will  be 
aware  of  an  entirely  different  atmosphere 
and  attitude.  Of  doctrine  there  is  now- 
adays scarce  a  word.  Fuller,  larger  life 
is  the  ideal  held  before  us.  The  poten- 
tial communion  of  man  with  God  being 
assumed,  as  it  always  has  been  in  religion, 
the  whole  strain  of  the  preacher's  discourse 
is  directed  towards  quickening  that  po- 
tency into  activity,  making  man's  sonship 
vital  and  spiritual.  He  finds  the  quint- 
essence of  the  Gospel  in  the  text  :  "  I  am 
come  that  ye  might  have  life,  and  that  ye 
might  have  it  more  abundantly." 

Few  persons,  who  have  not  the  oppor- 
tunity and  the  taste  for  verification,  have 
any  idea  how  sweeping  has  been  the  re- 
action against  the  religion  of  dogma.  It 
has  gone  on  gradually  and,  for  the  most 
part,  silently,  but  with  the  force  and 
efficacy  of  a  process  in  nature.  The 
revolution  with  which  the  modern  world 
has  been  in  travail  is  now  accomplished. 


164  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

Yet  the  sight  of  it  is  a  surprise  even  to 
the  actors  themselves.  The  hand  is  sub- 
dued to  what  it  works  in,  and  many  of 
the  clergy  find  it  hard  to  conceive  that 
the  creeds  which  formed  so  large  a  part 
of  the  material  of  their  theological  train- 
ing are  actually  either  obsolete  or  of  minor 
consequence.  But  the  laity,  who  have 
ceased  to  read  them,  are  rallying  to  the 
support  of  practical  and  spiritual  religion. 
The  goal  of  this  religious  movement  is 
not  uncertain.  It  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
not  the  religion  of  humanity,  though 
humanitarianism  is  one  of  its  manifes- 
tations. Neither  is  it  simple  ethical  cult- 
ure, though  it  leads  to  the  full  exploration 
and  development  of  the  moral  nature  of 
man.  There  can  be  no  religion  without 
God.  And  one  great  characteristic  of 
the  anti-dogmatic  religion  of  the  day  is 
the  conception  of  God,  not  as  a  capricious 
Power,  not  as  an  external  Lawgiver  and 
Judge,  but  as  an  Infinite  Life  and  Spirit 
with  whom  the  finite  life  and  spirit  that 
is  ours  may  have  fellowship  and  find  ever- 
lasting joy.  Personality  in  man  moves 
out  towards  personality  in  God,  and  is 
met  by  it.     The  fuller  our  conception  of 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  165 

personality,  the  truer  and  deeper  will  our 
religion  be.  It  was  a  mistake  of  the  older 
theologians,  with  their  love  of  formulae 
and  finality,  that  they  resolved  the  soul 
into  a  small  number  of  definable  faculties. 
It  is  one  of  the  many  boons  we  owe  to 
recent  psychology  that  it  has  taught  us  to 
recognize  the  Vague  as  well  as  the  Definite 
in  the  life  of  the  soul.  Just  in  proportion 
as  we  see  and  reverence  the  mysterious 
depths  of  our  own  nature  shall  we  rise  in 
worship  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  who  is  its 
source  and  ground.  Spiritual  religion  is 
the  conscious  union  of  man  and  God.  It 
defines  itself  only  in  the  process  of  coming 
to  be,  and  then  only  to  the  subjects  of 
this  process. 

If  the  result  we  have  now  reached, 
along  different  but  converging  lines,  be 
correct,  certain  conclusions  follow  as  corol- 
laries. These  will  serve  to  characterize 
a  little  more  fully  what  we  have  ventured 
to  call  the  religion  of  the  future. 

First,  spiritual  religion  will  maintain  a 
social  organization.  The  church  is  rooted 
in  the  nature  of  things.  It  is  the  essence 
of  spirit  to  express  itself,  to  manifest  itself 
to  others,  and  to  form  associations  with 


166  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

them.  Of  all  shallow  speculations,  few 
are  more  absurd  than  the  assumption  that 
churches  are  the  device  of  priests  and 
parsons,  the  mere  organs  of  dogmas  whose 
decline  they  cannot  outlive.  The  fact  is 
that  every  good  yields  its  goodness  only 
when  shared  with  others.  Even  gross 
material  things,  like  food  and  drink,  lose 
half  their  flavor  when  taken  in  solitude. 
The  common  meal  is  the  first  product  of 
civilization.  Art  and  science  embody 
themselves  in  corporate  institutions  which 
nourish  and  diffuse  them.  The  church, 
too,  is  essential  to  spiritual  life,  in  which 
no  man  can  live  unto  himself. 

If  this  was  recognized  when  religion 
meant  belief  in  dogma,  how  much  more 
emphatically  should  it  be  recognized  of 
spiritual  religion !  Creeds  and  rituals 
split  mankind  into  sects;  in  spiritual 
religion  men  are  drawn  together  by  com- 
munity of  experience  and  aspiration. 
The  religious  man  will  feel  (if  he  will 
but  think  of  it)  that  he  is  an  organ  of  a 
common  life,  which  is  the  spirit  of  the 
church  universal.  Few  things  seem  to 
me  to  be  of  more  practical  consequence 
for  the  future  of  religion  in  America  than 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  167 

the  duty  of  all  good  men  to  become  iden- 
tified with  the  visible  church.  Liberal 
thinkers,  have,  as  a  rule,  underestimated 
the  value  of  the  church.  Their  standpoint 
is  individualistic,  "  as  though  a  man  were 
author  of  himself  and  knew  no  other  kin." 
"The  old  is  for  slaves,"  they  declare. 
But  it  is  also  true  that  the  old  is  for  freed- 
men  who  know  its  true  uses.  It  is  the 
bane  of  the  religion  of  dogma  that  it  has 
driven  many  of  the  choicest  religious  souls 
out  of  the  churches.  In  its  purification 
of  the  temple,  it  has  lost  sight  of  the 
object  of  the  temple.  The  church,  as  an 
institution,  is  an  organism  and  embodi- 
ment such  as  the  religion  of  spirit  neces- 
sarily creates.  Spiritual  religion  is  not 
the  enemy,  it  is  the  essence,  of  institu- 
tional religion. 

Secondly,  the  religion  of  spirit  does  not 
need  a  unique  or  separate  sect.  Such  a 
limitation  would  contradict  the  univer- 
sality which,  potentially  at  least,  can  even 
now  be  seen  to  characterize  it.  It  is  a 
Pentecostal  outpouring  which  every  one 
receives  "in  his  own  tongue,  wherein 
he  was  born."  It  is  a  leaven  working 
in  all  the   sects.     It  uses  what  it  finds 


168  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

to  hand,  recognizing  frankly  that  the 
churches  have  gone  beyond  their  starting- 
points,  and  to-day  move  towafd  goals 
which  would  have  been  inconceivable  to 
their  various  founders.  It  pays  little 
heed  to  the  questions  of  speculation  and 
church  government  out  of  which  the 
denominations  have  arisen.  It  intrenches 
itself  in  the  citadel,  living  on  the  best  of 
terms  with  ritual  and  dogma  which  oc- 
cupy the  outworks.  The  maintenance 
of  this  non-sectarian  attitude,  which  is  a 
present  note  of  spiritual  religion,  may  be 
predicted  for  the  future,  as  it  can  certainly 
be  asserted  of  the  past.  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact,  though  the  meaning  of  it  has 
not  been  apprehended,  that  the  decline  of 
dogmatic  religion  in  modern  times  has 
given  a  check  to  the  multiplication  of 
sects.  The  development  of  spiritual 
religion  in  America  has  had  for  its  con- 
comitant the  consolidation  of  the  great 
existing  types  of  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion. Creedal  religion  makes  sects; 
spiritual  religion  uses  them,  and  in  using 
unites  them. 

Thirdly,  spiritual  religion  will  make  its 
home   with   any  of   the   religious   bodies 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  169 

which  recognize  it.  It  will  more  and 
more  become  the  condition  and  the  cri- 
terion of  church  membership.  As  at 
the  present  day,  so  presumably  in  the 
future,  there  will  be  in  all  the  churches 
men  who,  according  to  their  various  char- 
acters and  stages  of  development,  stand 
pre-eminently  for  ritual,  for  dogma,  or 
for  spirit.  But  the  latter  class  is  likely 
to  increase  with  considerable  rapidity. 
And  it  will  shape  the  church  of  the  fut- 
ure. The  first  business  of  such  men  must 
be  to  understand  and  sympathize  with 
their  brethren  who  have  not  yet  escaped 
the  bondage  of  rites  and  formulae.  One 
thing  they  must  not  do  :  they  must  not 
part  company  with  them.  How  is  the 
divinely  ordained  education  of  the  human 
race  to  be  achieved,  if  the  children  of 
light  mass  their  torches  and  leave  their 
less  favored  brethren  in  absolute  dark- 
ness ?  Humanity  is  a  school  of  spiritual 
culture  only  (if  I  may  appropriate  a  fine 
thought  of  Martineau's)  when  its  mem- 
bers, who  have  a  common  nature  but 
diversified  attainments,  group  themselves 
into  organizations  of  like  and  unlike, 
analogous  to  that  of  the  family,  which  is 


170  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

the  miniature  type  of  every  moral  organ- 
ism. Consequently,  if  a  true  Christian 
discovers  that  the  creed  of  his  church  is 
no  longer  tenable,  his  plain  duty  (other 
considerations  apart)  is  not  to  leave  the 
church,  but  to  let  his  light  so  shine  that 
others  may  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
fact  that  the  church  is  not  the  mere  em- 
bodiment of  a  creed,  but  the  plastic 
organization  of  a  life  which  is  spiritual. 
His  insight  into  the  real  situation  of  affairs 
forbids  desertion,  even  though  he  is  aware 
that  fidelity  may  be  rewarded  by  banish- 
ment or  persecution. 

Such  a  course  is  apt  to  be  denounced 
both  by  the  religious  and  by  the  secular 
press.  It  is  held  that  the  defence  is 
sophistical  and  disingenuous,  and  that 
those  who  plead  it  are  undermining  moral- 
ity as  well  as  religion.  Now  I  will  not 
deny,  though  I  will  not  aver,  that,  in  the 
case  of  those  holding  clerical  positions  of 
honor  and  emolument,  the  course  here 
recommended  may  be  unwise,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  their  motives  may  be 
misinterpreted  by  those  who  are  always 
ready  to  catch  the  "appearance  of  evil." 
But,    apart    from    this    consideration    of 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  111 

expediency,  I  see  no  reason  why  an  hon- 
est man  should  withdraw  from  a  com- 
munion in  many  of  whose  formularies  he 
has  ceased  to  believe.  My  reasons  for 
this  conclusion  are,  however,  very  dif- 
ferent from  those  usually  adduced.  To 
read  into  the  articles  of  faith  propositions 
which  they  never  contemplated,  or  were 
even  expressly  framed  to  deny,  seems  to 
me  intellectual  jugglery  and  moral  palter- 
ing, of  the  most  shameless  sort.  But  this 
sophistry  is  the  product  of  the  religion  of 
dogma ;  it  is  the  deposit  left  by  the  cor- 
rosion of  doubt.  Protestant  Christianity, 
speaking  generally,  has  put  away,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  religion  of  dogma,  and  is 
even  now  rising  to  the  heights  of  spiritual 
religion.  To  this  religion  no  one  can  be 
true  who  makes  the  creed  the  condition 
or  test  of  fellowship.  Varieties  of  church 
government  have  perhaps  originated  more 
sects  than  varieties  of  doctrine  ;  and  in 
the  near  future  it  will  be  thought  as 
absurd  to  leave  a  church  because  one 
disagrees  with  its  detailed  formulation  of 
doctrine  as  it  would  seem  to-day  to  leave 
it  because  one  thinks  its  system  of  gov- 
ernment not  altogether  perfect. 


172  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

Doctrine,  worship,  and  polity  will,  doubt- 
less, in  the  future,  be  brought  into  closer 
harmony  with  spiritual  religion  than  we 
see  to-day.  But  the  change  will  be 
wrought  silently  and  from  within  out- 
wards. Agitations  for  the  revision  of 
doctrines  and  modes  of  worship  are  not 
desirable,  if  they  concentrate  attention 
upon  these  subordinate  elements  of  relig- 
ion. If,  as  is  frequently  the  case,  they 
help  many  persons  to  see  that  there  is 
something  higher,  they  conduce  to  real 
progress.  Plainly,  the  religious  bodies 
best  organized  for  development  are  those 
which  have  adopted  the  principle  of  local 
independency.  Each  church  can  differen- 
tiate itself  according  to  the  requirements 
of  its  inner  life  and  its  outer  environment. 
While  the  movement  from  dogmatic  to 
spiritual  religion  is  in  progress,  these 
various  Independent  denominations  are 
likely  to  be  the  favorite  homes  of  liberal 
Christianity.  When,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  movement  is  completed  (if  it  ever  is), 
the  American  preference  for  stable  ecclesi- 
astical order  can  scarcely  fail  to  inure  to 
the  benefit  of  the  Presbyterian  and  Epis- 
copal bodies.    The  latter  has,  indeed,  some 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  173 

advantages.  For  it  has  not,  to  the  same 
extent,  enveloped  religion  in  dogma,  and 
thus  it  cannot  suffer  so  much  from  des- 
quamation. The  impressiveness  of  its 
liturgy  and  the  grace  and  good  sense  of 
its  forms  —  which  in  the  seventeenth 
century  filled  Laud  with  a  consuming 
sense  of  the  "beauty  of  holiness,"  and 
in  the  nineteenth  drew  from  Emerson 
the  comment,  "By  taste  are  ye  saved" — 
give  scope  and  satisfaction  to  the  aesthetic 
sentiments  which  in  recent  times  have 
gained  a  very  prominent  place  in  the 
worship  of  all  religious  bodies.  It  is 
conceivable  that  some  such  organization 
as  the  Episcopal  Church  might  ultimately 
become  the  catholic  organ  for  that  spirit- 
ual religion  which  seeks  to  express  itself 
in  symbols  and  in  creeds.  But  the  ex- 
perience of  a  century  suggests  that  in  the 
four  or  five  favored  and  consolidated  types 
of  "  strenuously  competing  sects,"  we  have 
a  diversity  founded  upon  ineradicable  dif- 
ferences in  the  religious  life  of  our  people. 
Fourthly,  spiritual  religion  will  lead  to  a 
modification,  if  not  to  an  abandonment,  of 
the  conception  of  authority  in  religion. 
Authority  is  properly  predicated  of  a  sov- 


174  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

ereigiic  He  has  the  right,  or  at  any  rate 
the  power,  of  enforcing  his  commands. 
But  if  the  ruler's  will  is  law  to  his  sub- 
jects, it  is  only  on  condition  that  it  limit 
itself  to  prescribing  or  prohibiting  certain 
kinds  of  actions.  Not  even  a  despot  can 
command  the  thoughts  and  the  spirit  of  a 
man.  It  is  for  conduct  alone  that  the 
sovereign  is  an  authority.  Accordingly, 
we  conclude  that  in  so  far  as  religion  is 
conceived  as  consisting  of  acts  or  observ- 
ances, —  and  these  constitute  the  relig- 
ion of  cult,  —  it  is  proper  to  speak  of  an 
authority  in  religion.  In  the  second  place, 
the  term  "  authority "  is  metaphorically 
predicated  of  specialists  who  have  mas- 
tered the  facts  and  laws  of  any  particular 
field  of  investigation.  Edison  is  thus  an 
authority  in  applied  electricity,  Huxley  in 
physiology,  and  Zeller  in  Greek  Philoso- 
phy. These  masters  tell  me  what  I  should 
believe  in  their  specialties,  and  I  accept 
their  teachings.  If,  in  the  same  way,  I 
recognize  a  man  or  a  council  or  a  book  as 
competent  to  lay  down  valid  propositions 
in  theology,  the  man  or  the  council  or  the 
book  is  to  me  an  authority.  Those  Avho 
identify  religion  with  belief  in  dogma  are 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  176 

within  the  line  of  possibilities  when  they 
speak  of  authority  in  religion  ;  that  there 
is  such  an  authority,  however,  is  not  a 
consequence  of  the  inherent  admissibility 
of  the  conception. 

But  if  it  is  not  impossible  to  think  of 
an  external  authority  —  even  a  final  and 
infallible  one  —  for  the  religion  of  cult  and 
the  religion  of  creed,  it  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms  to  suppose  that  there  can  be,  ulti- 
mately at  least,  any  authority  for  spiritual 
religion  outside  the  soul  which  experiences 
it.  Autonomy,  not  heteronomy,  is  the  way 
of  the  spirit.  But  since  we  rise  to  spirit- 
ual life  through  successive  stages  of  devel- 
opment (for  the  baby  is  only  potentially 
a  spirit),  the  agencies  which  stimulate  and 
incite  us  to  self-realization  may,  in  a  de- 
rivative sense,  be  designated  the  authori- 
ties for  our  religious  culture.  Without 
them  we  should  not  have  reached  the 
stature  of  perfect  men,  or  acquired  the 
freedom  whereby  the  spirit  becomes  its 
own  sole  and  absolute  authority.  This 
religious  experience  is  paralleled  by  the 
moral.  The  source  of  moral  obligation 
for  the  child  and  for  the  undeveloped 
adult  is  the  will  of  the  family,  of  society, 


176  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

of  the  state,  and  even  of  God.  The  virtu- 
ous man,  on  the  other  hand,  knows  that, 
while  he  is  a  fellow-worker  with  all  the 
moral  forces,  human  and  divine,  in  the 
universe,  duty  would  become  mere  legal 
or  mechanical  obligation  could  any  one 
impose  it  upon  the  free  spirit  but  itself. 
Yet  if  the  good  man  is  also  a  philosopher, 
he  must  recognize  that  that  free  spirit 
could  never  have  come  to  itself,  that  the 
individual  could  never  have  developed  into 
a  personality,  but  for  his  training  in  and 
through  society  and  under  law,  to  both  of 
which  he  has,  nevertheless,  in  course  of 
time,  come  to  feel  his  own  moral  essence 
to  be  superior. 

Just  as  law  and  society  are  authorities 
in  morality,  so  the  Bible  and  the  church 
are  authorities  in  religion.  Through  these 
disciplines  we  make  our  way  —  at  least, 
some  do  —  to  the  higher  altitudes  of  free 
and  self-supporting  moral  and  religious 
life.  But  many  fail  to  reach  this  stage ; 
and  even  those  who  succeed  would  surely 
fall,  if  deprived  of  the  guides  and  helps 
that  led  and  aided  their  steps. 

The  function  of  the  Bible  and  the  church 
is,  in  this  regard,  educative.     The  noblest 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  177 

souls  will  feel  most  deeply  their  value,  as 
they  would  be  the  last  to  belittle  the  func- 
tion of  law  and  society  in  the  moraliza- 
tion  of  mankind.  By  its  worship,  even 
if  it  be  merely  formal,  the  church  puts 
men  in  the  mechanical  attitude  of  piety ; 
and,  owing  to  the  wonderful  connection 
between  our  mind  and  our  motor  mechan- 
ism, the  muscular  exercise  reacts  upon 
consciousness  and  quickens  the  germs  of 
religious  life.  No  doubt  Pascal  carried 
the  matter  to  an  extreme,  when  he  coun- 
selled men  to  take  holy  water  and  observe 
ceremonies,  as  if  the  rest  would  come  of 
itself.  But  the  general  principle  is  sound: 
it  is  the  foundation  of  the  histrionic  art ; 
and  one  of  our  most  eminent  psycholo- 
gists has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  joy 
and  sorrow  are  the  effects,  not  the  causes, 
of  laughing  and  of  crying.  But  besides 
its  ritual,  the  church  has  its  articles  of 
faith.  The  memorizing  of  these  stands 
in  much  the  same  relation  to  spiritual 
religion  as  the  learning  of  the  multipli- 
cation table  to  the  reasonings  of  the  origi- 
nal mathematician.  Lastly,  no  description 
could  well  exaggerate  the  value  of  the 
Bible  as  an  agency  for  the  development 


178  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

of  spiritual  religion  in  the  soul.  This 
religion  emerges,  when  the  human  and  the 
Divine  spirit  meet  and  embrace.  Now 
the  Bible  is  a  record,  on  a  large  scale,  of 
man's  reaching  out  after  God  and  of  God's 
communication  of  Himself  to  man.  It  re- 
veals God  as  inflexible  righteousness  and 
as  infinite  love.  What  a  glass  it  is  through 
which  to  see  the  ever-living  God  !  But 
how  useless,  when  you  put  your  eyes  out ! 
A  scholar,  who  is  the  ornament  of  a  great 
church,  was  recently  on  trial  for  heresy  be- 
cause of  his  contention  that  the  Bible,  the 
church,  and  the  soul  (or  what  he  calLs 
"  reason  ")  are  the  three  sources  of  author- 
ity in  religion.  His  accusers  assert  there 
is  only  one  ultimate  authority.  If  the 
foregoing  analysis  be  correct,  neither  party 
has  the  whole  truth  and  each  has  a  por- 
tion. There  is  only  one  ultimate  author- 
ity in  religion,  —  we  mean  spiritual  and 
not  dogmatic  religion,  —  and  this  is  the 
free  spirit  of  man  which  finds  itself  in 
life  with  God.  The  Bible  and  the  church, 
it  is  true,  are,  in  a  certain  sense,  authori- 
ties :  they  have  the  authority  of  peda- 
gogues who  train  us  up  to  the  religion  of 
spirit.    The  terms  "  authority,"  "  finality," 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  179 

"  infallibility,"  and  the  like,  are,  however, 
all  borrowed  from  the  religion  of  dogma. 
They  are  all  inapplicable  to  the  highest 
stage  of  religion,  which  is  not  an  objective 
fact,  but  a  subjective  attitude  —  an  ever- 
tending,  never-ending  process  of  com- 
munion with  God. 

Fifthly,  and  lastly,  the  religion  of  spirit 
will  be  not  only  theistic,  but  Christian. 
Christianity  affirms  that  God  and  man 
exist  for  one  another  ;  that  human  beings 
are  children  of  the  Divine  Father  who  loves 
them  with  an  exhaustless  love,  and  that 
they  find  their  blessedness  in  a  correspon- 
dent love  of  Him.  This  was  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  it  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all  spiritual  religion.  But  there  is 
another  sense  in  which,  as  I  believe,  the 
religion  of  the  future  will  be  Christian. 
Some  liberal  thinkers,  indeed,  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  personality  of 
the  author  of  Christianity  is  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  our  religious  life,  if  we  are 
not  deprived  of  his  noble  and  exalted 
teachings.  Others  would  be  satisfied  with 
a  good  example.  But  this  position  I  hold  to 
be  erroneous.  Like  the  religion  of  dogma, 
it  springs  from  an  inadequate  conception 


180  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION 

of  the  soul  as  mere  intellect  feeding  upon 
truth.  But  the  soul  is  living  spirit.  It 
grows  and  realizes  itself  by  contact  with 
spirit.  I  am  moved  more  by  my  vision  of 
the  personality  of  Jesus  than  I  am  by  my 
thought  of  His  doctrines.  Spiritual  growth 
is  brought  about  by  the  impact  of  nobler 
souls  on  ours.  Consequently,  I  cannot 
understand  the  Voltaire-like  petulance 
with  which,  in  his  Divinity  School  Ad- 
dress, Emerson  banished  "the  person  of 
Jesus  "  from  genuine  religion.  He  thinks 
that  you  cannot  be  a  man  if  you  "must 
subordinate  your  nature  to  Christ's  nat- 
ure." It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  you 
realize  your  capacities  only  by  coming  into 
contact  with  their  realization  in  others. 
The  objectified  self  reveals  the  subjective 
aptitude  ;  and  with  the  thrill  of  discovery 
begins  the  higher  development.  Spiritual 
growth  is  the  attainment  of  those  who  con- 
stantly look  up  to  higher  personalities. 
Now  if  it  is  true  of  Jesus  Christ  (as  Emer- 
son says  in  the  address)  that  "  alone  in  all 
history,  he  estimated  the  greatness  of 
man  :  one  man  was  true  to  what  is  in  you 
and  me,"  then  I  should  say  that  you  and 
I  are  to  find  our  own  highest  life  by  open- 


SPIRITUAL  RELIGION  181 

ing  our  souls  to  the  influence  of  this  per- 
fect and  absolute  personality.  Nay,  as 
Jesus  Christ  was  perfect  man,  so  also,  and 
for  that  very  reason,  was  He  the  revelation 
and  realization  of  the  Divine  Father.  In 
the  new  dispensation  of  spirit,  as  in  the 
old  of  dogma.  He  must,  therefore,  in  some 
sense,  if  not  the  orthodox  sense,  continue 
to  be  our  Mediator  and  Saviour. 


uirivi      TT 


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